


Good News (is on the way)

by derryere



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-17 00:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 60,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10582518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryere/pseuds/derryere
Summary: Arthur, a travelling businessman, decides to rent a room with the Wyllt family while in town. Hunith is charmed. Her son, Merlin, is not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another oldie, this one from back in 2011. And lordy lord if you've read it back in the day, you know it comes with its own set of warnings--ones that should be emphasized before you head into the fray: there's a considerable 10-year age difference in the first part of the fic (28 and 18, a little different from the original). 
> 
> A huge thank you to everyone who's contacted me with your thoughts on this fic over the years, be they thoughts of confusion or affection, they all meant the world! Hopefully, this piece 'o work can find a good new home here, dwelling amongst the talented, the deprived, and the talented but deprived. 
> 
> Sincere apologies go out to Modest Mouse. You've done nothing to deserved this. Such is life.

**Good News (is on the way)**

Bad news comes don't you worry even when it lands  
Good news will work its way to all them plans  
We both got fired on exactly the same day  
Well we'll float on, good news is on the way.  
\- Float On by Modest Mouse

  
  
*   
  
A colleague has good things to say about the room, says he'd stayed there for a few months back in the summer of '99, taking the bus up and down to London three days a week. The half hour commuting was doable, he'd said. There's a park nearby, he'd said, and a few pubs down the street. "S'nice," was his overall conclusion, absently ticking the end of his biro on Arthur's desk. "Clean."  
  
He spends an evening scrolling through the lady's website. It's comic-sans and gifs dancing against a backdrop of green, but the pictures promise a cottage with a garden--an attic room with a window and a bathroom, a wardrobe, a desk.  
  
It's cheap. For just a little more he could get a place in the city. Closer to work, closer to old friends, closer to--  
  
He stares at the phone number at the bottom of the page, flanked by two twirling cloves. A tinny, monotone rendition of  _always look on the bright side of life_ is playing over the speakers, and it hasn't started annoying him yet but it will, soon enough. In the quiet office of his night-grey apartment he tries to work out differences in time, EST over GMT, leaning back in his creaking chair--staring up at the ceiling, pensively clucking his tongue along to the music, resting his phone on his chest.  
  
*  
  
He lands on a an early morning flight, a few days after the new year. He's tired and slow in hailing a cab, and ends up dozing off in the passenger's seat on the way there. It's snowing and raining on and off, and by the time he gets to the Wyllts' place the sun's already up. His suitcases gather slush around the wheels as he walks the path to the front door, and the cottage--he thinks, looking up--is almost exactly like it was in the picture. Only the weather is worse, and the trees around it bare, squiggly branches reaching out for the second floor windows.  
  
Ms Wyllt is as nice and inviting as she'd sounded on the phone, though slightly older than he'd imagined. But her lipstick is immaculately applied and her smile is wide, and in a grey woollen turtle-neck he thinks her breasts look amazing. He's still in his coat when she sits him down in the kitchen and makes him a cup of strong, bitter tea, explains the rules of the house, explains that there is one other lodger and her son, who lives with her, and asks whether he likes kids?  
  
"Not particularly," he says, quietly, looking down into his cup.  
  
"Well," she says, tightly smiling over the awkward pause, playing with her own cup. She shows him to his room, helps him carry the suitcases upstairs, and says she will leave him to it.  
  
Arthur flops onto the bed and stays like that for a long time, not moving, not even falling asleep. The view of the window looks less inviting than it did in the picture, and all he can see from this angle is a colourless stretch of sky and the clawing end of a branch, moving to the winds.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
Arthur's attention snaps to the doorway. A boy, nineteen or eighteen of sixteen or--it's all the same, really--is standing with one hand to the frame. He's every kid Arthur's seen on the streets in every country he's been, awkward with his jeans slung low, a hoodie, messy curls and glasses. Wyllt's son, he assumes.  
  
"Could you please close the door," Arthur says, hoarse.  
  
The kid seems taken aback for a second, then glances away, nervously, like he's just realised he's seeing something he shouldn't. He closes the door quietly, tugging up his jeans at the same time.  
  
Arthur sighs and closes his eyes. Next time he opens them, it's dark outside.  
  
*  
  
The other lodger, Arthur finds out on one of the first mornings, is a Frenchman. He's startled awake at half past six by loud singing from somewhere in the house, and when he ambles down the stairs still squinting and half asleep, finds it's coming from the shower. He's apprehensive as to what to do next, whether to knock on the door or shout or just go back upstairs, try to sleep through it, when Ms Wyllt appears out of one of the rooms--linens draped over her arm. She stops in step at seeing him, almost a start, then smiles, says,  
  
"Morning." And, a quiet moment later, "Guy loves to sing."  
  
"Could you--" Arthur has to pause, clear his throat of its scratchy quality. "Tell him to, uh . . . "  
  
Someone knocks on the bathroom door from behind him. It's the kid, and Arthur hadn't even noticed him moving about, listening to the conversation or anything--it takes a him moment to recall who the child is.  
  
"Guy," he calls. "Quieter, please!"  
  
The singing stops for a moment. "Que, Mer _lín_?" then sounds back, over the sound of running water.  
  
Arthur gives Ms Wyllt a sleepy smile and trudges back toward the stairs. He has to squeeze past her in the hallway, and does so as gently as he can. She presses back to the wall with an abashed huff of a laugh, and glances away and to him, away and to him again.  
  
Arthur can see how he might be imagining running into her in the kitchen at night, fucking over the counter. It's just a brief a fantasy, he's not actually hoping for it, and while he supposes he could wank to it--he's too tired right now, too desperate for more sleep to work up the effort.  
  
*  
  
He's got two days to go before he starts on the job, and the place already bores him. It's still snowing out, feels like one of those winters--the ones where it feels like it's going to take halfway into summer before the ice will thaw. He remembers the last one they had one of those. He'd been much younger and had a lot more friends, and spent a great part of that January on the floor of his mate's college dorm, passing judgement on dead Russians like he knew what he was talking about, trying to sound as smart as he'd heard other people be. It was all right though, since everyone seemed to be trying so hard and so loud, all the dressed up ignorance got lost in the jumble of big words and a lot of wine. They were so sure they were the centre of the world back then. Seems ridiculous, now, they're all so bloody insignificant.  
  
The illusion was better than this, though, Arthur thinks--taking a walk through the park, trudging through the muddy snow. The small fields of grass between the paths are a patch of white, and the trees shed packs of snow from their branches every so often. Some people are walking their dog, some kids are trying to make a snowman, but it's not working very well.  
  
He has a slow smoke on a bench, then goes back. At the house he warms his fingers by holding them under the hot water in the kitchen. Guy is sitting at the table, doing the sudoku of the regional paper. He's well over fifty, balding, wears glasses when he reads. He works as a translator for a shipping company, and has been spending his winters at the Wyllts' for the past eight years.  
  
"I remember when you could not even reach that high," the man says, bemused. Arthur looks to see the kid reaching for the top of the cupboard, grabbing the cereal.   
  
"Yeah," the kid says, stepping around Arthur--going for the fridge. "And you never helped me out though, did you, old man?"  
  
"Too much candy is bad for your teeth and your tummy," Guy replies, smiling a little.  
  
"Yeah, right," is what the kid has to say, huffing a laugh, putting the milk on the table and flopping into a chair himself. He looks very flushed and very young, eyes bright behind his glasses. He sounds stupid but looks like he might be smart, the kind of person Arthur would've quietly tried to impress some six years back.  
  
But right now he dries his hands and leaves the kitchen. The kid's name is Merlin. Arthur, having grown up as Arthur, does not appreciate the irony. He'd heard enough king and sword jokes to last him a lifetime by the time he was fifteen. He can only imagine what it must be like for this kid, with his hair and glasses and lanky limbs. Wizard Boy, he imagines his friends might call him. He wonders if he could get away with it, calling the kid that, and knows he couldn't. For a brief second he wants to be able to, has a flash of what if he did end up falling for the mother and he'd be the young, hip dad from abroad and whether Merlin could say, Yeah right, to him with that same fondness, but then he sees himself ruffling the boy's hair and it's simply too odd and the fantasy disintegrates into the outrageous.  
  
*  
  
First day on the job and he's relieved. People, people who know what he's there for, talking his language, asking him questions and paying him for answers. He's missed the suits and tempo, the tone of his voice when he orders, demands, the flick of his wrist when he signs.  
  
When he gets back to the Wyllt's place that evening he's cheerful and optimistic. Ms Wyllt is sitting opposite him at the dinner table in a v-neck sweater, and he can't help but look a couple of times. They're good breasts. It's a good sweater.  
  
"So what's it you do, then?" Merlin asks through a mouthful, passing the mashed potatoes.   
  
"I--well, ah." Arthur takes the potatoes, puts them down. "For a living, you mean?"  
  
"Yeah," Merlin says. He plants an elbow on the table, fork in hand, turning attention to Arthur.  
  
"Well, I. Sort of. When companies are going through a hard time, financially, and they're not sure why, then they ask me to help them, you see. So I evaluate their records and regroup and--"  
  
"Sack people?"  
  
"Well." Arthur wipes his hands on the napkin draped over his lap. "Occasionally, yes, it is necessary to let some people go, and occasionally that decision is left up to me, but--"  
  
"So you go to a place you've never been before, and you decide who gets to stay and who gets to go, just like that? Not even knowing the people or asking, like, if they have families or something, or kids or something? Or--"  
  
" _Merlin!_ " his mother cuts in. She shoots Arthur a quick, apologetic glance, a little red in the face. "What do you think you're doing?"  
  
"Just asking, is all."  
  
"Well, stop asking." She quickly looks to Arthur again, adds a mutter of, "Honestly don't know what your problem is, young man. Where you've learned that kind of . . . "  
  
"Yeah, right," Merlin grumbles, staring down at his food.  
  
The rest of dinner passes in silence. After, Ms Wyllt apologises as they clear the table, and they talk a little over a glass of wine. It's nice, and the blotchy flush over her chest distracts him. She asks him about his work, his family, about working all over the world. He asks about how long she's been renting out rooms, and whether she likes it, and compliments her site. She says she went on a special course to make it, and that a friend, who works at the library, helped.  
  
She bids him goodnight with a lingering hand to his shoulder, and he gives her a warm smile.  
  
When he goes upstairs, Merlin stops him before he's up the second flight. The kid is in his pyjamas, standing outside the bathroom--leaning back against the wall with a toothbrush in his mouth.  
  
"How come you're American," he asks, muffled as he brushes his teeth.  
  
Arthur looks at him. "Excuse me?"  
  
"You don't sound American," Merlin says. "You sound like, British."  
  
"I was born here," Arthur says, simply.  
  
"Oh yeah? Where then?"  
  
He shrugs. "London."  
  
"Yeah right." He goes into the bathroom to spit.  
  
"What, you don't believe me?"  
  
"Haven't you any family here, then?"  
  
"That's--As it happens I don't, no, but that's--"  
  
"Friends, then? Anyone?"  
  
Arthur is silent. Merlin shuffles out of the bathroom again, looking up at Arthur--bemused and a little mean, that unkind teenage intent pinching his features. "Bit sad, that, innit?"  
  
Arthur pulls his face back like he didn't expect that. He sort of did. He remembers what it's like to be eighteen. "Look--what's your problem, kid? What do you want from me?"  
  
Merlin shrugs. "I haven't got a problem. What's  _your_  problem?"  
  
Arthur frowns. "What?"  
  
Merlin shrugs again, then saunters off--disappears into his room, shutting the door behind him a tad too loudly. It makes no sense. The child makes no sense. Arthur stands there for a moment longer, then turns--walks up to his room, shaking his head to himself, confused.  
  
*  
  
He tries to call Gwen. She picks up, says, "Hello?" and he hangs off, heart wild in his throat.  
  
I'm over it, he tells himself. I'm over it, I'm over it, I'm--  
  
He's not over it. He wants to delete her from his contacts, but can't, finger hovering over the 'OK' button for too long. Does she have kids now, he wonders, and feels a bit queasy imagining it.  
  
*  
  
Sunday afternoon Ms Wyllt is gone to visit her mum, and Guy is upstairs listening to his music, snatches of heavy syllables and guitars floating through the walls and the vents into the kitchen, where Arthur is humming along, working on his laptop. He thinks the kid is out, but isn't sure until he hears a raucous outside--voices shouting something, laughing, and then the front door is slammed open, shut. Something clatters against it. Arthur, curious, gets to his feet, slowly walking toward the hallway.  
  
"Merlin?" he says, and when the door comes into view he sees it is Merlin--slumped against the door, mumbling a quiet, "Shit," as he wipes at his face, keeping his head down. He pushes off the door, tries to barrel past Arthur, but Arthur catches his arm with a,  
  
"Hey, what--"  
  
Merlin's eye is swollen. His face is wet, glasses askew and he's weeping, and Arthur is so taken aback he instantly lets go when Merlin snatches his arm back. Merlin's already storming up the stairs by the time Arthur gathers enough wits about him to call after with, "What the bloody hell was that!"  
  
All he gets in reply is a door slamming shut, again.  
  
He seethes for a moment, then turns to the front door. He opens it and sees a group of three boys, more or less Merlin's age, walking away as they talk loudly--pushing each other about, laughing, kicking whatever they can to impress their friends.  
  
"Oi!" Arthur calls, already out the door--walking down the path to the curb. "Oi, you!"  
  
The three boys turn. They don't look particularly surprised, and when noticing Arthur--not particularly intimidated.  
  
"Wha?" says one. He's got his hoodie up over his head, and he's pulling at his jeans--like they're too big, or maybe he's trying to show his sneakers. He feigns a limp, or a walk, and Arthur--despite himself, despite how much older he is, feels intimidated.  
  
"D'you beat up that kid?" Arthur asks, trying to make himself bigger. Talking loud. "Merlin?"  
  
"What of it?" says another one. He's got braces.  
  
"You--can't do that! What is your problem, you can't just walk around--"  
  
Without warning, the one with the braces steps forward and kicks him in the shin. Hard. Arthur doubles over, clutching at his leg, coughing out a pained sound. He's honestly surprised at how much it hurts. The boys pull at each other to run away, laughing, shouting, "All right, Gramps!" before they go.  
  
Arthur sits down on the snowy pavement, back against the garden's hedge. Head tilted back and hands clutching his knee, he waits until he can't feel his heartbeat in his leg anymore. Then he gets to his feet, ambles back toward the house. When he closes the door behind him, a bedraggled looking Merlin is at the top of the staircase, staring down.  
  
"Thanks a lot," he says. "Loser."  
  
Arthur watches as Merlin disappears off into his room, and breathes out a quiet, "My pleasure."  
  
*  
  
Guy has a stroke the following week. It's a bit of a fright, and Ms Wyllt is the the one who was there when he fell--early evening in the hallway of the second floor. Arthur drives her and her son to the hospital, five minutes after the ambulance pulls away. Guy makes it just fine, is only a bit slow and sad when they get to him in the hospital room. Ms Wyllt sits at his bedside, weepy but smiling, and both Arthur and Merlin stand in the doorway--hands in pockets, feeling too big and awkward.  
  
They spend long hours filling our paperwork, answering questions and getting informed, and it's ten by the time the three of them get to go home. Ms Wyllt and Arthur are having a cup of coffee in the waiting area, and Merlin is trying to will a bar of Snickers out of a vending machine. From this angle, with the fluorescent light behind the glass throwing a blueish hue over his features, reflecting on his spectacles, the black eye is clearly visible.  
  
"Got a football to his face," his mother tells Arthur, absently, noticing him noticing. "Bless him, he's not big on the sports."  
  
Arthur replies with a humming, non-committal sound, drinking from his paper cup. Merlin grunts at the machine, pushes at it, and still the candy won't come out. Fuck, Arthur can see him mouth, running a hand through his messy hair. He stands there for a moment, then starts walking back, slowly, hands in the pockets of his hoodie.  
  
*  
  
His secretary asks him to join her for drinks after work. He says no, then yes, and a week later they have it out in his office--over his desk, his trousers around his ankles, her skirt shoved up to her waist. It's the oldest story, the most painful cliché, and it's almost strange to him that it took him years in this business to actually get to this position, the one where he's avoiding eye-contact for a month after and considers getting her sacked. He doesn't, because that's not done, but it's uncomfortable and she's unhappy. He never did say yes to that dinner invitation.  
  
Ms Wyllt always seems a bit hurt when he doesn't make it to dinner, and Merlin still seems to hate him. Guy is taking it easy.  
  
He has to go back to the states for a week, stand trial for an old boss and wrap up an old deal, and expect to feel the relief of home at sleeping in his old apartment--the quiet and the not sharing his fridge, his space, his time. But he doesn't. He feels mostly lonely. He mocks himself for it, thinks he probably had it coming, still remembering a time when he was convinced he wouldn't become the sum of what everyone thought he'd turn out to be. He's not sure why things feel like they're changing, but somehow--suddenly, he finds he doesn't like himself as much as he did a year ago.  
  
Ha ha, richboy, he thinks, in boxers and a t-shirt, slurping ramen and staring down at the lively city street through his bedroom window. I have seen the greatest minds of my generation, blah blah blah.  
  
*  
  
Ms Wyllt kisses his cheek when he returns, hugs him briefly. Guy waves at him with his newspaper, and Merlin is not around. This is not his family. He barely knows these people. He is absolutely sure this is not his family. When he settles back into his attic room, his bed isn't made, the pillow dented and the sheets somewhat ruffled. He knows it's not how he left, and wonders who's been sleeping in his room. Inspecting the sheets does nothing to help, and he figures, after ten or so minutes, that it doesn't really matter anyway.  
  
Later that day he walks in on Merlin wanking in the downstairs bathroom. He closes the door immediately with an awkward "Whoop!", overlapping with Merlin's, "What the hell!"  
  
An hour later, he can laugh about it. Merlin can't. He ignores him for a long time, red-faced and worrying a split lip between his teeth, not saying a word even when Arthur tries to assure him it's no big deal--that it had to happen sooner or later, getting caught like that. And now that it did, once, chances are slimmer it'll happen again.  
  
He chuckles at his own nonchalance, staring at Merlin's back from the kitchen table. Merlin folds his sandwich, grabs a bag of chips, and leaves the room.  
  
*  
  
He tries to call Gwen. She doesn't pick up, the answering machine sounds boxed and artificial over the line, and he hangs off before it can get to the beep.  
  
He calls Gareth, but Gareth has moved away two years ago. He's in Bridlington now, but maybe they could still meet up for a cuppa sometime soon but oh now he has to go, the baby is crying, and oh, Vera, what are you doing? Put that down! No, no, don't throw--Vera,  _Vera!_  I said  _put that book down!_  
  
From downstairs, Arthur can hear Ms Wyllt tutting over her son's latest sport injury.  
  
*  
  
On a weekend, he tries to go for a walk in the park. The snow's almost all gone now, but the white was prettier than the muddy brown and bare trees. He takes a book, thinks maybe he can read--he used to read, hadn't he? He hasn't read a book in years though. Apparently you can forget how, he finds, staring at the same page for over a half hour and not registering anything.  
  
He goes back, cold and annoyed, and goes in through the back garden. He finds Merlin by the shed, huddled, sneaking a smoke. When the boy notices him, he freezes, cigarette loose between his fingers, back hunched and eyes hard--expectant on Arthur.  
  
"Hiding from your mum, are you?"  
  
"Bugger off," is what Merlin has to say to that, resuming his movement--taking a quick drag. Arthur turns to lean back against the shed door next to him, digging up his own flattened pack of smokes--knocking it against his leg to make one of the sticks jump out. He takes it between his lips, then mumbles a, "D'you have a light?"  
  
Merlin surveys him uncertainly, but tosses a lighter his way. Arthur catches it, keeps the fire from dying by a shroud of his hands, and Merlin says,  
  
"Don't think I'm gonna like you or anything 'cuz you smoke and won't tell my mum or anything."  
  
"Who says I won't tell your mum?" Arthur replies, smiling as he gives back the lighter--blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. Merlin frowns at him, as though appalled, and Arthur laughs, says, "Relax. I won't."  
  
Merlin looks more annoyed than relieved, but still looks away with a sigh of smoke. Arthur, feeling like he should add something, takes another drag and says, "You really shouldn't smoke, though. How old are you? Eighteen? Nineteen?"  
  
"Yeah, right." Merlin huffs. "You don't really care, anyway. You're just saying that 'cuz you feel you should."  
  
Arthur quirks his eyebrows at his cigarette. Thinks about it. Then, "Fair enough. Yeah. You're right. I don't really care."  
  
Merlin gives him a look. "You're such a twat."  
  
"Oh, I am, am I?"  
  
"Yeah, you are."  
  
"Well, you're a snot-nosed little punk, so."  
  
Merlin snorts. "Whatever, man."  
  
"How am I twat, exactly, though? What exactly did I do to earn that title? Just so I'm clear, you know. Not to make the same mistake again."  
  
"You just are, alright."  
  
"I just  _am?_  Is that your brilliant mature reasoning, Einstein? I just--"  
  
"You don't care, alright?" Merlin cuts him off. "You're just living here, aren't you? Bloody don't care about us, or mum or nothing. And she's making herself bloody silly over you, isn't she? With the stupid wine and those stupid sweaters, and her hair all--whatever. She didn't used to be like that, you know. She used to behave just normal. Now she's all, oh, uggh," he affects some kind of effeminate tone when saying that, twirling his fag about. "And you don't even notice. You don't care about her, and she's--she's going to--"  
  
"Hello, what, hold on!" Arthur gives an incredulous laugh, blinking. "Hold on. I never--I have absolutely no intentions with your mum, okay? Besides." He bristles, squints up at the sky. "I'm engaged."  
  
"No you're not."  
  
"I'm sorry? You know better than me now, do you?"  
  
"I know you're not engaged." Merlin scuffs the toes of his shoe into the weedy grass. "You're never calling no one."  
  
"Hello, what! Have you been spying on me now?"  
  
"No!" he throws back instantly, insulted. "No. Ew. Just noticed, is all."  
  
Arthur frowns at him for a moment, but then lets up--squints overhead again. They smoke in silent for a little while, tense, and when it starts drizzling the little jut of the small roof mostly keeps them from getting wet. There's some back and forth of birds in the distance, the sound of rain on plastic canvases, and Arthur breaks the silence with a,  
  
"Fine, whatever. I'm not engaged."  
  
Merlin raises his eyebrows in unimpressed acceptance as a reply, and Arthur continues.  
  
"But I'm honestly not after your mum, alright? Honestly. I mean--she's a lovely lady but, I mean. Christ. Just, I'm giving you my word, alright? And I'm not leading her on. Or at least I'll try not to. Okay?"  
  
Merlin licks his lips. They're chapped and red from the cold, but the split is mostly healed. He looks up at Arthur, wary, and Arthur repeats,  
  
"Okay?"  
  
Merlin shrugs. "Whatever."  
  
It's something.  
  
Before they go inside, some twenty minutes later, Merlin shuffles closer as they step through the kitchen door and asks if he smells like smoke. Arthur sniffs, says, "A bit," and Merlin mumbles a quiet, "Aw, shit."  
  
"Take a shower," Arthur says, smiling. "You'll be fine."  
  
*  
  
"You should tell someone about those wankers," Arthur tells him a few days later. He had toed his way downstairs in the middle of the night--unable to sleep and somewhat hungry--and found Merlin in the living room, playing a video game with the headset on. He'd settled on the other side of the couch with a pack of digestives, watching Merlin shoot soldiers hidden behind bunks until the boy yanked the headphones off with a curt, "What?"  
  
"Who beat you up all the time," Arthur clarifies. "You should tell someone about that."  
  
"Like who?" Merlin asks, tossing the headset on the coffee table.  
  
"I don't know. The headmaster. The counsellor. Your mum."  
  
"No."  
  
"Would you rather keep getting your arse kicked then, s'that it?"  
  
"Of course I'd bloody rather well not! But there's not much I can do though, is there. I'll tell someone about it, and then they'd tell them off, and then they'd know I'd tattled--and then get their friends or something to beat me up cuz I'm such a mummy's boy." He's staring at the television, where the menu of the game keeps replaying. The lights reflect off his glasses in squares and blues, eyes visible in short glimpses.   
  
"Why are they beating you up now, anyway?"  
  
"I don't know, do I?" Merlin turns to look at him, and the glare of the television is gone, his eyes are a striking shade of blue. "If I'd known you'd think I'd've done something about it, wouldn't you? I mean--" He shrugs, hapless. "S'not much reason to it, is there. They just pick someone to piss on, and then keep on doing it until they're bored. If doing nothing was enough reason to give me a shitty time, I'd rather not give then any new reason to keep on, you know."  
  
Arthur chews on a biscuit, hums thoughtfully. He remembers being Merlin's age. He also remembers not being in quite the same situation. More the opposite, actually. "You should fight back," he comments, tilting the packet to Merlin.  
  
"Yeah, right. Cheers." He takes a biscuit. "Great advice, mate."  
  
Arthur thinks for a while longer. Merlin continues with his game.  
  
*  
  
Ms Wyllt wears a dress for dinner. She has her hair up and the scent of perfume partly overrides the thick smells of rice and curry. Arthur, still in suit, asks her if she's going anywhere nice tonight--sitting down at the table, pulling his chair closer.  
  
She smiles and says that no, just felt like dressing up tonight. Not too old for that, "Am I, surely?"  
  
Arthur smiles back as he accepts the pan she passes him from the counter, puts it on the table and tells her that, "You look lovely, Ms Wyllt."  
  
"Hunith, please," she corrects. "How many times are we going to have to go over that?"  
  
"Hunith," he says, gently, and across the table Merlin scoops up his dinner as loudly as he can--clattering with the cutlery, dumping a pan onto the doily with a thud, glaring down at his food. His mother cuffs him lightly over the head when she passes, and Arthur feels a slight twinge.  
  
He eats quietly and excuses himself quickly, retreating to his room. It's a long evening of youtubing old football victories, scanning the internet for the myth of free porn and replying to pages worth of emails, evaluations of evaluations of nothing he cares about.  
  
*  
  
March sees the end of snow, and then there's a sunny day that if you stay inside, in the warmth of central heating with your sweater on, and look out the window--it almost feels like spring. Gwen calls him, unexpectedly, and he answers--also unexpectedly. He's on his way back, speeding down a country road in the company's car, and the mobile's set to speaker-phone.  
  
"Arthur?" she says, like she's not sure she actually dialled he's number.  
  
"Um," he says, and little else.  
  
"Hi! Hello. Hi. I, um." She breathes. "How--how are you?"  
  
"Good. Good." He swallows, looks at the rearview mirror. The road is empty. "Busy. You know."  
  
A nervous laugh. "Yeah. Aren't we all, right."  
  
"Right, yes. Yes. I, ah. How are you?"  
  
"Fine! Fine, yes, you know. Same old. Well--sort of. Have an apartment now. Finished my training. Have a--"  
  
"Babies?" he interrupts, aiming for joking but his voice cracks, and it ends up being a breathy statement--anxious and uneasy. Gwen is silent for a moment, then,  
  
"No," she says. "No babies, Arthur."  
  
He frowns at the speeding scenery, the still trees ahead of him, the turbid colours blurring as he passes them in time with the whirring sound of the motor. He shifts, tries to get comfortable as he says, "How's Lance?"  
  
"Good. Considering. We're--we're both doing the best we can." The pause that follows is nearly unbearable, but when she adds, "It's not easy, Arthur," he can't help but bite back with a quick,  
  
"Of course, yes. I can see how hard it must be for the both of you. Together and all. Yeah. A real hell, having each other."  
  
"Don't be a dick, Arthur."  
  
"I feel I sort of get to be a bit of a dick, to be honest." His grip tightens on the wheel. "Feel I sort of earned that right, to be honest."  
  
She doesn't say anything to that, and he hates her, hates the deep affection he still feels, hates the guilt he'll probably always feel when being mean to her. With a sigh he tells her that he's, "back in London."  
  
"Oh. Wow. That's." Another pause for a breath, deep and wary. "Since when?"  
  
"A few months."  
  
"Where are you staying?"  
  
"Renting a place outside of town."  
  
"Is it nice?"  
  
"It's with this family. They rent out these spare rooms."  
  
"Are you serious?"  
  
"Yeah. It's tiny. And they have this kid, eighteen, and he thinks I've got the hots for his mum." He gives a small, quiet laugh. "Called Merlin. The twerp, that is. Of all names, god. The irony never stops, does it."  
  
"I met this girl called Morgana the other day," Gwen tells him. "Almost texted you her number. But, you know. Maybe a bit too soon for the jokes, I figured."  
  
"A bit," Arthur says.  
  
The silence that follows is wistful more than anything, and Arthur catches himself smiling--schools his expression into a frown, concentrates on the road again as he clears his throat and announces he has to go. Gwen doesn't ask why, doesn't suggest they call again, and they bid goodbye with a just a word--no plans, no assurance that they'll meet again.  
  
It's a relief.  
  
A mile before the Wyllts’ place he spots Merlin sitting on the side of the soft road, broodingly plucking at grass, his backpack on the ground next to him. It's close to sundown and it's definitely cold, and the boy's brown, weathered jacket doesn't look like much.  
  
"Fucking fuckheads got my bike," is what Merlin mutters when Arthur leans over the passenger's seat to let him in. He flops down and slumps against the window, blinking a lot from underneath an angry frown. It doesn't take away the sweaty flush on his neck, up his jaw, the redness of his eyes is or the fact he can't help the grimace—the trembling pull of his chin every so often.  
  
Arthur says nothing during the short drive, but as they pull up to the cottage he can't help but--  
  
"It can't go on like this."  
  
"Fuck you, man," Merlin says, bag tight to his chest, pushing the door open. "You're not my dad."  
  
Arthur watches him trudge up to the house for a few heartbeats, then closes his eyes. Clutches the wheel. Drops his head against it, the leather digging into his forehead. "Ugh," he says, and stays like that for a while longer.  
  
*  
  
When one of the quieter under-executives, a middle-aged single man who knows—as well as everyone else—how close he is to losing his job, invites Arthur for a lunch meeting and ends up spending a half hour in the lot showing him his car, Arthur isn't quite sure why his first reaction is—  
  
"You wouldn't be adverse to, say. Lending her out for a day, would you?" Accompanied by a promising grin, a silent suggestion of friends politics. The man is uncertain, smiles shakily, but fumbles out the keys all the same—hands them over to Arthur as he rambles on about instructions and the brakes, mileage and the polish.  
  
Arthur says "yes" and "yeah" to everything, not paying attention, already getting in, dumping his briefcase in the back seat. The man begs him to be careful, and Arthur grins something awful, says he'll have her back by the end of the day—switching off the handbrake, pushing at the gears. She's a beauty, all lines of silver and an open top, and even though the weather's shit and the sun's a greyish blob behind a blanket of clouds—he still takes off his jacket, puts on his sunglasses. Unties his tie.   
  
He hadn't had a plan but it forms as he goes, checking the time and stopping by a McD, getting a milkshake like he's skipping school in favour of sugar, swerving off the main road to the comprehensive he's passed a few times back when he first started out--didn't know the way and made a bit of a detour every other morning. He parks outside, one arm draped over the door, slurping his drink. Kids are going about, collecting and dispersing and being loud, unlocking bikes and kicking balls about.  
  
Arthur honks, loudly. People turn to look, and he honks again, and again, and a fourth time--until Merlin turns to look from where he's slumped against the school gate, talking to a mousy looking kid about his age, drowning in clothes twice his size. Merlin doesn't seem to process where the sound's coming from, or that it's directed at him, or that it's Arthur behind the wheel of the jag.  
  
"Oi!" Arthur shouts, giving another honk. "Brotha!"  
  
Merlin's attention frazzles then locks on him, eyes wide, disoriented. He doesn't move, just stares, and Arthur gives the motor a nice rumble. "You coming or not, then?"  
  
A good deal of heads turn to Merlin. Waiting to see what he'll do, faces pulled into that default state of teenage disdain--vague admiration or disbelief, murmuring running comments at each other.  
  
Arthur grins, widely, quirks his eyebrows up over his sunglasses--twice. Merlin slowly turns to the boy he'd been talking to, mouths something indiscernible, then starts toward the car. He's blushing, trying not to look at the collected crowd as he tosses his bag into the back seat and gets in.  
  
"Hello," Arthur says, hands him the milkshake, and shifts gears--pushes down on the gas, turns the wheel, pulls up onto the road with a final honk. Some people hoot in return.  
  
Merlin stares down at the milkshake, still blushing furiously.  
  
*  
  
"That's not your car though, is it," Merlin says, a little while later, through a mouthful of hamburger--sitting opposite him in a booth at McDonald's.  
  
"Nah," Arthur says, nicking a chip. "Sort of borrowed it for the day. Gotta have it back by the end of the day."  
  
Merlin snorts. "Are you trying to, like. Pull a gangster's paradise on me or something?"  
  
"A what?"  
  
"You know," he says, looking up from his burger. "Like in the film and stuff."  
  
Arthur frowns at him for a moment, then stops chewing--drops the chip back onto the pile, blinking. "Child, do you mean Dangerous Minds? Michelle Pfeiffer?"  
  
He shrugs, nonplussed. "Whatever."  
  
Arthur reaches across the table to playfully push at his head. "Idiot," he laughs, leaning back into the creaking upholstery as Merlin huffs and tries to fix his hair into whatever mess it was before. Arthur gives him a light kick under the table, getting his attention. "You are, by no stretch of the imagination, a tortured gangster. I have more chance being mistaken for Pfeiffer, if anything."  
  
"Euggh!" Merlin voices his disgust from around another mouthful, making a face.  
  
"Finish your food," Arthur says on a breathy laugh, picking up a chip again. He eats it slowly, shaking his head at the boy--unable to stop smiling and looking away, Merlin's outstretched legs knocking against his, knees bumping together.   
  
*  
  
Arthur only gets to be pleased with himself for a day. A day in which he congratulates himself for not having lost touch with the youth of today, for still knowing what's cool, for still  _being_  cool--and he figures he is pretty cool, after all. With his condo and money and the fact that he occasionally listens to Jay-Z—even though he only ever remembers it’s Jay-Z and not Jayz after he’s said it wrong, after it gets a laugh—the fact he knows who Robert Pattinson, sort of, is vaguely aware of the phenomenon and and has a Wii back at his old place, rarely played with but always with great enthusiasm. The high-scores are all under his name, too. Even if only three people have joined in for a game so far. Still.  _Still._  
  
He could call Merlin wizard boy now and get away with it. He's sure of it. He's  _cool._  Fuck the Gwen thing, fuck abroad, he is  _Arthur_ \--ran-across-the-quad-in-knickers Arthur, snuck-into-the-girl's-dorm Arthur, passed-exams-stoned-out-of-his-mind Arthur, he's--  
  
"Someone here to see you, Mr Penders," his secretary tells him, voice tinny over the intercom. She pauses, somewhat strained, before adding: "Says he's your little brother?"  
  
Arthur is confused for a moment. He glances at the books on the self, uncomfortable, then, "Merlin?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Something lodges at his throat at that. This can’t mean anything good, he can feel it—it’s the instant way he tenses, the way he blinks faster. "Send him in," he says, tightly, and the next thing Merlin's in his office--face smudged and bloody, twisted in an ugly grimace. His glasses are gone, which perhaps explains the cut on his nose. He's holding his bag by one of its straps, dragging it over the carpeting as he approaches Arthur's desk. Without so much as a word he flops into the visitor's chair opposite, looking small and pathetic slumping in the leather upholstery. He sits there, seething, as Arthur slowly rises, smoothing down his tie.  
  
"What happ--"  
  
"What d'you think happened?" Merlin chokes out, voice wrecked. He glares at Arthur, then stares down at the desk, hands gripping the arms of the chair. He sniffs. "I took the bus here. You'll have to take me home."  
  
Arthur takes a breath, sighs it out, sits back down. "Merlin, I don't understand what--why--"  
  
Merlin's attention is still fixed on the desk when he cuts in with a, "Because it's your bloody fault, is why! Fuckin' tossers, fuckin'--" He chokes, grimaces. "Where's your brother now, Merlin. Who's gonna pick you up from school now,  _Merlin._  Well, fucked if I know!" He looks up now, angry and terrifying with the way his face looks. His hair is wet, Arthur notices. It must've been raining.  
  
"Apparently they were reminding me I wasn't as cool as I thought I was," he continues. "So I wouldn't forget. Figured I wouldn't forget if they bashed my face in proper for once, right."  
  
Arthur looks at him. He has no idea what to say.  
  
"Well?" Merlin speaks through clenched teeth, visibly trying not to shiver. "What now, then? Mr London bloody town? Eh? Mr New-York fucking city, answers to everything, with the--stupid car and--" He swallows, and he's crying, face too wet and messy. "What are you gonna do about this one? Get me more food? Take every one of those fucking bullies to McDonald's? Is that how you're gonna fix it? And who's gonna explain this to my mum, then, cuz I am out of excuses and she doesn't even know about the bike and those bloody knobs broke my glasses and I can't buy new ones, I haven't any money, I haven't bloody anything and--"  
  
"I'm sorry." Arthur runs a hand through his hair, scratches at the back, says, "Look, I'm really sorry, I had no idea it'd end like this. Clearly, I didn't. I would've never, if I'd known, I'd've . . . I'm sorry. I am."  
  
Merlin gives a wet chuckle. "You should be. It's all your fault, anyway. Every time you try to help you just make it worse. I mean, you do, don't you? First mum, now this. You're such a twat. Such a stupid twat, I don't even know why I'd--" The rest of the accusation is lost as the words catch at his throat, and he can't keep in the sobs, pressing the heel of his hand to his eye with a quiet, "Fuck.'  
  
"Nina," Arthur croaks—leaning down toward his phone, finger on the intercom button—one eye on Merlin, hunched in on himself--rubbing over his face with the back of his sleeve. "Could--you bring us some water, please?" And then, a static second later, "And--something to clean up. A, ah, towel? Band aids?"  
  
Merlin calms down when Nina helps wash his face. She's brought with her a bowl of water and a towel, sits on the edge of Arthur's desk as she gently wipes away the dirt from Merlin's cheeks--like she knows what she's doing, has been in this position before. Merlin drinks his water, gets the hiccups, asks for another glass of water. She brings him tea, and he drinks that, too, as she puts a band-aid over the bridge of his nose. Runs a caring hand through his hair. He's eighteen, should be too old for this, but he looks too tired and sad to care.  
  
On the way back, in the car, Merlin falls asleep. Arthur stands parked outside the house for a long time, unsure of how to wake him. Of how to explains this, of how to put the mess into words, make it so the boy's mother won't hate him.  
  
"Merlin," he tries, a hand to his arm. Then again, palming his shoulder, "Merlin."  
  
Merlin doesn't stir. He looks exhausted, his features sharp in the shadowed car, the little cut along his cheek looking less life-threatening than it had a few hours before. Arthur lifts his hand, gingerly, a brushing touch to the boy's cheek. He fixes his hair, tugging it behind his ear, trails down to cup his sleep-warm neck, heart a little wild in his chest.  
  
"Merlin. Oi. We're home."  
  
*  
  
Later that night, after the talking, after the explanations, after the decisions, after all of that--after, Arthur's in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed, staring. He’s thinking jumbled things, can’t decide on one trail—flicking through memories and some words without context—when someone knocks on his door. He gets up to open it, still distracted.  
  
It's Merlin. Merlin in his pants, with sleep-rumpled hair, squinting, pillow-lines on his bruised cheek. "Hey," he says, voice scratchy.  
  
Arthur should say something back. He should, he knows, but all he manages is a thin smile—hand slipping off the doorknob.  
  
Merlin makes a filler noise, sucking air through his lips. Then, on a sudden breath, "Sorry I called you a stupid twat. I didn't . . . mean, that you're a, you know. I was just . . . "  
  
"I know," Arthur says. "It's. Fine."  
  
"Oh. Cool."   
  
Awkward, but wanting to give something more, Arthur reaches out to clap his shoulder. Merlin mistakes it for something else, goes for a half-hug, and it ends up being a halted movement on both ends, an uneasy succession of, "Oh," and "Whoa," and, "Um."  
  
Arthur is bent weirdly, patting Merlin's back. Merlin gives Arthur's shoulder a strange kind of squeeze. They both pull back as quickly as possible.  
  
"Uh," Merlin says, crossing his arm over his chest, holding on to his elbow. "Goodnight."  
  
"Night," Arthur says, and watches him retreat--trod down the stairs. The light play of muscle on his spotted, teenaged back surprises Arthur in that he notices it, and in that his instant reaction is sharp with worry and affection, aching in his throat and lower, lower, lower still.   
  
*  
  
"I didn't know you had family here," Nina says, a few days later, bringing him some copies and a cup of tea.  
  
"Step brother," Arthur improvises, thanking her with a smile, taking over the papers--looking them over briefly as he puts them on the other side of his desk.  
  
"Is he better now?"  
  
Arthur glances up at her. She's a nice girl. He wishes they hadn't flirted, hadn't done it and got it over with so early on. It would've made it easier to show more interest, these days. "Yes," he says. "Much. Thank you, by the way. You were a great help."  
  
"Good. I'm glad. He seemed--" She pauses. "Sweet."  
  
Arthur raises his eyebrows, mostly to himself. "If that's what you want to call it."  
  
"Well," she says, and wipes her hands down the sides of her skirt. She leaves soon after that, leaving Arthur to his work. To his afternoon tea.  
  
*  
  
It's getting warmer. A slow shift of temperature, noticeable only because everyone's looking out for it--watching the weather obsessively, the country as a whole, tracking the smallest changes of degrees. Early April, after a loud shower has passed over the neighbourhood, Arthur can sit in the backyard and smoke without his jacket on, in just his woollen sweater, and not be cold. The plastic sail draped over the garden chair is wet, but once he's sat getting up won't make it any better and so he stays like that--leaning forward, elbows on knees--until Merlin joins him. The boy stands by the empty flower bed, hands in pockets, staring at the hedge.  
  
Arthur surveys him, blowing out smoke along with a visible puff of a warm breath. The bruises have faded, he's wearing an old pair of glasses. His hair is shorter now. He's had it cut last week.  
  
Arthur says, "You wanna go for a walk?"  
  
Merlin glances at Arthur's cigarette. He can't smoke in the garden, where his mum can see, and Arthur thinks Merlin figures he'd be able to bum a smoke once they're out of sight.  
  
"Yeah, alright," he says, locking his shoulders like he's cold.  
  
Arthur pushes himself to his feet. "You don't want to put on a jacket?"  
  
"Yeah, right." Merlin huffs—as if,  _a jacket_ , what was he thinking—and waits until they're barely past the shed before saying, "D'you reckon you could maybe spare one?" nodding at Arthur's fag.  
  
Arthur holds his cigarette tight between his lips to use his hand, cuffing Merlin upside down the head--ruffling his hair and pushing him toward the gate in the same movement, calling him a, "Child!" on an amused puff of breath and, "Shouldn't you find a more age appropriate pastime, hm?"  
  
Merlin ducks away as he pushes his way through the ramshackle gate, giving a bark of laughter--flipping his hoodie over his head. "I'll be nineteen in a month," he says, as they start in the direction of the park. "How old were you when you started smoking, then?"  
  
"Irrelevant," Arthur says, flicking the ash off the end of the stick. It glows red again, and when Merlin holds out his hand, asking for a drag, Arthur gives it with mock-disapproval. A lady in a large coat walks by, her dog--an old animal, hunch-backed and grey--walking a few steps ahead, no leash. Arthur sneaks a sideways glance, watches Merlin's lips around his cigarette. Watches him breathe in.  
  
A moment later, when Merlin gives it back with a smile of thanks--head tilted to blow the smoke away from Arthur's direction--Arthur accepts with a shake of his head. He takes a drag himself, mouth on that same spot, sucking in the smoke.  
  
*  
  
Guy is singing in the shower again. Arthur trudges downstairs to yell at the door in what little French he knows, which basically amounts to, "Guy, mon dieu, ta geuele!", and seems to do little in the way of helping. The old man's laughter sounds through the running water, and a sleepy Merlin appears in the hallway, exaggerating a tortured pinch of his face as he drags himself toward the stairs. He groans, whiny, and Arthur greets him with a,  
  
"School?"  
  
"Merde," is what Merlin has to say to that, and Ms Wyllt, coming up the stairs, pauses to brush back his hair--flash a smile at Arthur.  
  
"Morning, boys," she says, and Arthur huffs his amusement before pushing off the railing, making his way back to his room. That day he gets back from the office before dinner, or maybe dinner's later, but he still manages to waste an hour on the couch getting taught the principles of Grand Theft Auto, tie undone, nervous and shouting in frustration when he's not doing it right and doesn't immediately get how it works. Merlin laughs and takes over the control, asking him, "Why do you suck so much?", which earns him a headlock before Ms Wyllt calls them to the table. In a flashback of nostalgia, Arthur remembers being eighteen, having dinner at Gareth's, being called to the table and missing the end of an old Thunderbirds episode.  
  
When Arthur helps Ms Wyllt with the dishes, she gives him a careful smile, bumps their shoulders together as she says,  
  
"It's great how much he takes to you."  
  
Arthur flushes, and smiles thinly. He nods as he quickly dries the salad bowl.  
  
*  
  
On weekend nights, Merlin stays up. Arthur feels it's pointless to ask why he doesn't go out or something, or invites friends over, because the circumstances more or less speak for themselves. Sometimes Arthur stays up with him, watches some film of the telly, heats up some leftover food from dinner. Or Merlin would be playing some game on the playstation, and Arthur would going through some memos, or they'd have a go a mario cart or--or Arthur would be draped out over the couch, lazily pushing at the control, making Laura Craft duck behind a grey mass of a wall to hide from the wolves, and Merlin would sit on the floor, messing about with Arthur's phone--changing his ringtone to something annoying.  
  
"Who's Marge?" he asks.  
  
"My sister," Arthur says.  
  
"Oh. Cool. Who's Liam?"  
  
"A colleague."  
  
"Oh. Okay. Who's Mel?"  
  
"Um." Arthur frowns. Thinks. "Dunno, actually. Mel who?"  
  
"Doesn't say." Merlin snorts. "Who's Gwen?"  
  
Arthur licks his lips, stares at the screen. Makes Laura jump on a bunk. "My ex."  
  
Merlin turns his head, staining to look at Arthur. The room is dark, and the light off the television reflects off the one lens of his glass, the other showing the dark colour of his eyes--the white of it gleaming.  
  
"Ex fiancé, actually," Arthur continues.  
  
"You were engaged?"  
  
"Yep. For over two years. And a month before the wedding . . . " He purposefully trails off, ending with a tight, deprecating smile. A purposeful jab to the controller—a necessary move.  
  
"A month before the wedding, what?"  
  
"Well, you know how in films, right," --he has Laura shoot at a stay wolf, jump over a puddle at the same time-- "in films you've got the couple and they're all oh we're so in love blah blah, and then she leaves him for his best mate, and like, the bloke is left alone or whatever?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"And how you're sort of meant to think that kind of stuff happens in real life, even though you know it doesn't?"  
  
"Uh," Merlin says, and Arthur has Laura walk straight into a wall as he adds,  
  
"Well, that's bull. It does happen. Word of advice." He flashes the TV a weak smile. "Don't introduce your girlfriend to nice people. Ever."  
  
"Jesus," Merlin says, after a long moment. "Seriously?"  
  
Arthur manages a laugh at this. "Not even the worst of it, that. You know what my mate's name was? The one who--yeah?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Lance. I shit you not."  
  
"Lance?"  
  
"Yeah, Lance, like . . . " He glances at Merlin, annoyed for a small second. "Lancelot? Gwen? Guinevere?" He quirks a brow. "Me? Arthur?"  
  
Merlin stares at him. It takes him a little too long to process, but then he barks out a laugh. And then another, and another, tilting his head back against the edge of the couch, right by Arthur's feet. He stares at the ceiling, adam's apple bobbing as he chuckles. "And now you're stuck with Merlin."  
  
"Yeah. Cheers." And for good measure, Arthur shoves his foot in the boy's face. Merlin groans, pushes it away, and tells Arthur he's a wanker. Arthur snorts, says, "If anyone's a wanker . . . " And gets his phone thrown at his head for that, a weak fist to his knee.  
  
"Hey!" he laughs, nudging Merlin away with his leg. His controller falls to the ground, and Merlin quickly nicks it, self-satisfied. This time it's Arthur's foot to the boy's shoulder and Merlin grins at the television, shrugging the foot off.  
  
Arthur hasn't had a friend in forever, and even if it's a bit sad this kid is ten years younger than him, that he's a bit of a failure, he can't help that it makes him happy. He agrees with himself that it's stupid, that this should be the highlight of his week, this four-eyed, spotty little disaster, but there's little he can do to ignore the bubble of affection building up at the sight of him—laughing at Arthur's jokes, trying to get his attention, pretending to be cooler than he is. Arthur sort of wants to hang out all day. Sort of wants to take Merlin to work with him, though he knows it'd get old and annoying and immature real fast. Sort of wants to cup the hot back of his neck again, because it felt nice, and he doesn't get much warmth these days.  
  
He falls asleep on the couch, and wakes up at dawn to a grey sunrise and early birds, Merlin curled on the carpet below, back to Arthur.  
  
Arthur's arm is limp on the floor. He lifts it, hand brushing along the boy's curls, fingertips weaving through them for a small moment.  
  
He drops his hand again. Thinks of college, the time he made out with a girl who was a guy at a dim and green-lit bar, and the time he freaked out because he thought he had a crush on one of his newer mates, he liked him so much. Wanted to be around him so much.   
  
Bad idea, he tells himself, and turns to lie on his side--face to the back of the couch.  
  
*  
  
The first real sunny day, a freakishly warm Saturday after a most bleary week, Arthur drags Merlin to the park--ignores the grumbling complaints at the fact that they've also brought a football with.  
  
"I'm really rubbish," Merlin tells him, as Arthur drops the ball on the grass--starts bouncing it about from foot to foot. "I mean really.  _Really._ "  
  
"Over there, by the tree," is Arthur's reply to that, pointing. "Go. Stand there. And stop--no, do not make that face at me!" he laughs. "It's a ball, Merlin! Honestly. A  _ball._  Now go. Go! Over there! Off with you!"  
  
They kick it back and forth for a while, and Merlin really is a little awful, but he gets the hang of it after some time--hoots wildly and pumps a fist in the air with a 'UGH!' noise when he gets a sharp ball past Arthur, biting his lip as he gets down on one knee to continue his victory routine.  
  
He gets somewhat more into it after that, and Arthur starts having fun, too--going for goals and getting sweaty, taking off his jumper and wiping at his face with the hem of his shirt. He brings out what he calls his skills, moves that were impressive back in the day, stealing the ball away as Merlin charges his goal of a tree and a plastic bag they keep from flying off by having planted a small rock on it. Merlin grabs at him, tries to get the ball back, and Arthur keeps him at arm's length--laughing and kicking the ball away, running after, Merlin hot on his heels. He scores a point and the next time it happens Merlin gets frustrated and tackles him, simply jumps on his back, and Arthur--not expecting it--goes down, as easy as that, topples over and wastes no time in retaliating, flipping them over, trying to shove a hand in Merlin's face. It's a messy scuffle that ends up being a mission of trying to rub the other's face in the muddy grass, and they both end up breathless and dirty--laughing, Arthur having given Merlin a bit of the upper hand and now Merlin's paused in movement, sitting on top of him, breathing hard as he smiles down, a light hand lingering on Arthur's throat, his collar, lingering in the pause they've found themselves in.  
  
A moment passes. Merlin's smile fades, his thumb brushing Arthur's pulse point. Arthur swallows. His hand is on Merlin's calf, the other twisted in the hem of his shirt where he's tried to tug him off. The boy's weight is solid and suddenly present, a body, a  _body_  and something flashes hotly in the back of Arthur's mind--makes him clench his jaw, flare his nostrils. Merlin is staring down, sweaty curls hanging over his face, mouth slack and eyes fixed on Arthur's mouth, breathing fast and—  
  
No.  
  
It's barely a choice. Just no. Simply  _no_  and Arthur huffs a choked laugh, pushes the boy off, brushing whatever mud he can off his clothes as he gets to his feet. Merlin stays on the grass, staring up, jaw angled as if hurt. Arthur ignores it and jogs toward the ball, slowly kicking it back--giving Merlin the time to get up, to smooth himself down.  
  
Something's lost, though. Merlin is brooding and Arthur is distant and distracted and they give up soon enough, silently packing things up, starting back toward home. They've barely walked for a minute, though, when Merlin stops--abruptly--with a muttered, "Shit, shit," turning around, walking the opposite way.  
  
There are three boys down the path, talking loudly to each other as they go--using too much hands and shoving in their discourse. Arthur recognises them, or if not, he at least fills in the blanks, and stops Merlin by walking backwards a few steps--catching his arm, saying, "Hey, no. Stop. Come on."  
  
"Arthur, they--got  _expelled_  because of me, yeah? They're--oh shit, they're gonna--"  
  
"Can't run away forever," Arthur tells him, trying to tug him along. "Come on."  
  
" _No!_ " Merlin gives the boys, coming closer now, a nervous looks--genuinely terrified for a second, clearly going over something in his head. "Oh god."  
  
"Oh, for--okay, fine. Hold this." He gives Merlin the ball. Takes a breath, and starts an easy run down the gravel path--slowing down, then, approaching the boys without an explanation. They don't seem to recognise him, giving him an odd look as he comes to a stop in front of them, and he greets them with a breathless, "Hello!", taking a step forward, and kicking the middle one in the shin--hard. The boy doubles over with a surprised groan, and his friends curse, and Arthur's already running off--skipping in a half backwards jog at first, laughing in shock, then turning around as the two friends appear to want to run after him.  
  
"Oh shit," he says, and passes Merlin, pulling him along by his sleeve. "Run!" he exclaims, laughing. "Run run run run--"  
  
Merlin doesn't need much telling. He's running, alright. Boy, he's running, faster than Arthur, speeding ahead of him--long legs carrying him at some kind of mad-people speed, lanky limbs shaking off their awkwardness for a momentary display of rhythm. Arthur is out of breath already, looking over his shoulder.  
  
The boys have given up. They're slowly coming to a stop a few dozen yards behind--one of them still walking, the other bent over, hands braced on his knees.  
  
*

 

Guy is going back home for the summer. A week before he leaves, Ms Wyllt has a barbecue in the backyard in his honour--apparently some kind of tradition, it is, and Arthur is made to promise he will not miss it. It's not very spectacular, a cheap grill and some bits of chicken on a stick--out in the garden throughout the warm evening, the four of them and the neighbours too, waiting for what seems forever for the meat to be ready.  
  
Merlin is sitting opposite on an upturned crate, in shorts and a large jumper, trying to catch Arthur's eye with nervous glances and hesitant twitches of smiles that Arthur ignores completely. The boy is nursing a beer, and his mother disapproves, but  _come on, mum, nineteen in two weeks!_  and _Arthur's having one! Everyone's having one!,_ and it's one of those situations that any more arguing would ruin the mood, would embarrass the company. So she lets him, and in return he makes a show of how absolutely unaffected he is by the alcohol. Even as he flushes, even as he grins inanely during conversations, he maintains a determined conviction of, "I'm not tipsy, mum. I've just had two, how can I—no, see, I'll get that for you. See? Straight line. Easy. Done. Easy!"  
  
Ms Wyllt's expression hardens with quiet worry as she watches him amble toward the house, his steps careful and specific in the rope-walking way of the mildly drunk. She notices Arthur's gaze a moment later, and gives a small, hapless smile in reply—as though to say she cannot help it. She clears her throat, puts down her plastic plate on the grass, and excuses herself to the kitchen, saying she forgot to ask Merlin to get something. The group mumbles assent, Guy mostly in conversation with the short, stocky neighbour—his taller wife listening intently, wineglass in hand.  
  
Arthur gives it a moment or two, then goes after. He finds her in the kitchen, over an open drawer, supporting herself with two hands on the edge of the counter. She's crying a little, and on noticing Arthur gives a surprised sob followed by a laugh, wiping her hands under her eyes and saying, "It's not—oh." She laughs again. "Look at me, the woman weeping in the kitchen. God." She closes the drawer, runs her hands over her cheeks again, smiling wetly. "I look a mess, don't I?"  
  
"Are you alright?" Arthur asks, stepping up to the counter. Ms Wyllt waves the concern away, shaking her head with a,  
  
"Fine. Fine! I'm like this every year, I promise. It's just . . . " Another sad smile, a breathy laugh. "I know it sounds—well. You know. But that silly old man, he just—has somehow become my best friend and. He's getting older, and Merlin's getting older, you heard him—nineteen in two weeks, mum! Gosh.  _Mum._  I remember when he couldn’t even reach the counter. Wrapping him up in blankets.  _I_  remember being just a week shy of eighteen myself, sneaking out of the house to have a smoke in the park. And now I'm . . .  _mum_ , and . . . "  
  
As she lapses into silence, looking down at her hands—her chipped nail polish, the attempt she made especially for the barbecue—Arthur shifts closer. He puts a hand on her arm, not knowing what to say. She doesn't look up, but her mouth twitches in an almost smile. In that moment, she has never looked more like her son.  
  
"He reminds me so much of my brother, you know."  
  
Arthur drops his hand. "Merlin?"  
  
She shakes her head. Then, "Well, yes, sometimes, but. Guy does, I meant. You know, I had a brother? His name was Lionel. He died very young. At twenty one." A pause. "I was Merlin's age at the time. A child, really."  
  
Arthur wants to say sorry, but doesn't know how to deliver it without sounding stupid. So instead he nods, gravely, and Ms Wyllt looks up at him—and smiles, suddenly genuine.  
  
"I'm so glad you and Merlin get along, Arthur. I—I worry, sometimes. He's a great boy but he doesn't have . . . well. I'm just glad, is all. That he has you."  
  
"Oh," is all Arthur has to say to that. And, "Well. You know. He's . . . yeah. We. It's alright."  
  
Her smile widens, and she's looking at him now—really looking, affectionate and soft, and Arthur thinks maybe he's missed something in the conversation. Her eyes are still red, face blotchy, weepy, and the silence stretches on—the sounds from the garden catching up with them.  
  
When she leans in to kiss him, he doesn't see it coming. And for all his fantasies, all his idle notions of this ever happening—him and the mum, in the kitchen, alone and away from the party—right now he's freezing up, not moving as she presses her lips to his, one hand bracing on his arm. It seems like forever that he stands there, waiting for something to happen, apprehensively glancing down his nose.  
  
When Ms Wyllt pulls back, it's with a searching look at first—then shock, like she's only catching up, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. "Oh, fuck," she says, quickly followed by a blathering of, "So sorry, oh, god, I—didn't mean to, really, so—"  
  
Arthur's attention snaps to a sudden movement over her shoulder. And as these things go, as they always go, Merlin is standing in the doorway—having come down from his room with a CD in hand. His eyes are huge, huge, and Arthur feels ill.  
  
The boy is out the door in a second, already half down the street by the time Arthur catches up with him, having left Ms Wyllt behind with a definite, "No, no, it's okay—I'll go after, it's okay."  
  
"Merlin!" Arthur calls, jumping over the small fence and onto the sidewalk, but it only makes Merlin change the walk into a run, darting in and out of the light from the streetlights overhead. "Merlin! Stop! It's—" Arthur starts to run after in earnest. "At least listen! Merlin!  _Stop_ , Merlin, just—"  
  
Merlin runs out of steam halfway through the next street, and Arthur catches up with him then—trying to stop him with a hand to his shoulder that Merlin shakes off immediately. He walks on, breathing loud and heavy, and Arthur hurries after—tries to stop him again, and this time Merlin turns to shove him away.  
  
"Fuck off!" he shouts. Stumbles back a step himself. He looks unsteady. "You promised! You—tosser, you  _promised!_  You said you'd never—"  
  
"I didn't!" Arthur yells back. "I swear, Merlin, that—that wasn't." He runs a hand through his hair, scratching, anxious and unsure of how to say this. "Your mother is—She worries, Merlin. Okay? About you and basically everyone, and she—" He takes a breath. He doesn't feel old enough to be the one to explain this, to pretend he's beyond this kind of mistakes. "She's only human, Merlin. Okay? So give her a break. And give me a break, too, by the way. I'm—trying, to be. Be something that I'm usually not, and it's not easy but I'm trying and you are bloody judging me all the time and—"  
  
"How—!" Merlin stops himself, briefly looking up. "How is this about you now? You just bloody snogged my mum, Arthur! I'm allowed a moment here, for fuck's sake!"  
  
"I did  _not_  snog your mother!"  
  
"Yeah, right."  
  
"I'm being honest! Nothing happened! She just—barely a peck, really, it's—"  
  
Merlin turns, starts walking away. Arthur is one step behind him, keeping up with a, "Merlin, come  _on._  The one moment you're saying how you want us all to treat you like an adult, and when we do you throw a bloody tantrum, so how do you expect—"  
  
"Fine!" Merlin shouts over Arthur's ramble, not looking behind him. His voice cracks. "Sure. Whatever. Leave me alone."  
  
"Merlin," Arthur pleads, watching the by now familiar hitch of Merlin's shoulders when he sobs. "Merlin, honestly. Is this really worth a cry over? Don't be a ba—"  
  
"I'm not crying!" Merlin tells him, voice thick—breath catching in his throat. Then, "Shut up. I'm not crying over your stupid twat face. There's more to my life than you and mum, you know. So, yeah, you can go back now."  
  
"You're not crying over me and—your mum?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
Merlin turns, suddenly, and Arthur nearly walks into him. The boy looks terrified, wild with it as he shouts, "I'm gay!"  
  
Arthur stares at him, silent. The statement hangs loud and obvious in the air between them. Then Arthur forces out a laugh, incredulous, and lies with an easy, "Well, what does that have to do with anything?"  
  
Merlin's answering grimace is also half a smile, ironic and pained. He laughs in reply, taking a step back and spreading his arms as he says, "I don't know!" He laughs again, though the sound turns into a sad one as his chin trembles. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Obviously. I mean . . . clearly, it's . . . "  
  
"God," Arthur sighs. "Fucking sucks to be you, doesn't it?"  
  
It's a little heartbreaking when Merlin's eyes screw shut at that, and Arthur reaches out to grab at the hem of his jumper, pulling him in for a resigned hug with a, "Christ, come here." The boy pushes against him awkwardly at first, but Arthur folds himself around him, tucking Merlin's face in the crook of his shoulder. His glasses mesh and skew on his nose, cold against Arthur's skin. Merlin breathes in, shakily, and slowly wraps his arms around Arthur's waist—clinging on to the fabric of his shirt. Arthur closes his eyes, presses his lips to the boy's ear and tells him in the quietest voice that he's stupid, such a, "stupid kid, Merlin," but that it's, "fine. It's okay." Merlin burrows into his neck, fisting the back of his shirt, and Arthur's not sure who he's talking to, presses a brief, mindless kiss to the nape of Merlin's neck and says, "I've got you." And, "Child. I've got you."  
  
*  
  
Before going to bed, he has a whispered conversation with Ms Wyllt in the hallway that goes like:  
  
"I'm so— _so_  sorry. I never meant to, you know, I just—"  
  
"—I know, it's—fine, honestly, I'm—"  
  
"—carried away, and the moment seemed—"  
  
"—worry about it, really, it happens, it's no big—"  
  
"—silly! And obviously I'd never, I'm not, well. I mean, obviously, you're—ten years younger, and I'm—"  
  
"Yeah, I mean. That's . . . "  
  
"Ridiculous," she finishes for him, adding a high, nervous laugh.  
  
"Yes. Ridiculous," he agrees quickly, breathing out a smile. "Obviously."  
  
She flushes, smile tight and unhappy. He opens his mouth to say something about how he didn't meant it like that, but she glances behind her, as though having forgotten something downstairs. He closes his mouth. They're standing a few steps away from Merlin's bedroom door, where the kid is sleeping, tired from emotion and what little alcohol he'd been allowed that evening. Arthur had caught a glimpse of him in bed earlier, his mother sitting on the edge—talking to him in a quiet, hushed voice. His eyes had been drooping shut, arms lifted up over his head, hands under his pillow.  
  
Arthur can't get the image out of his head, can't shake off the idea of how warm he must be: under the sheets in an old t-shirt, flushed with sleep, chest rising to his deep, even breaths.  
  
*  
  
It's raining out, coming down in earnest—in that loud, distinct manner it does in the summer, as though the earth is so dry every drop makes an impact. After a few days of heat the weather has decided that that is that, enough sun for England for now, and clutters the sky with a thick colour of grey, turns down the temperature to just below pleasant. Merlin is on Arthur's bed, sitting on folded legs and playing with Arthur's laptop—claiming he needed to check his mail, and that his computer is slow, and busted and that it takes forever for the browser to even load. Arthur interprets this as 'I've mucked up my PC with internet porn', and lets him have at it while he has a smoke by the open window, flipping through some reports.  
  
The house is empty. Hunith has gone to see Guy off, driving him to the docks—where the old man will take a ferry back home, having resolutely refused to get on an airplane since an incident in '83, when the plane he was had some trouble taking off and tumbled back down seconds after becoming airborne. Everyone had come away relatively fine, sporting some scratches and the odd concussion, but the experience had been enough to dissuade him from flight for the rest of his life. Merlin had told Arthur this, in a quiet, distracted voice while he typed and clicked away at the laptop—and Arthur listened, ignoring the papers on his lap to stare outside, blow smoke out the corner of his mouth, occasionally glancing at the boy.  
  
He tries to remember what he was like at eighteen, nineteen. He'd lost his virginity to a girl named Maya—she'd worked as a bartender at the pub he and his mates used to hang out. He'd thought he was in love with her for a very long time after, and even when he knew better, still recalled their brief exchange with a sense of shameful regret. His dad was still alive, then, and he was off to university after that summer. He had a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up, and his friends used to nickname him Thor—made jokes about his mighty hammer. He was very young and very happy and thought, privately, that he was the best person he knew, and if not the smartest then definitely the wittiest. He thought the rest of his life was going to be a continuation of that summer, thought that theoretically it probably could get worse—but that it wouldn't, that the bad times weren't in his blood. That he was born for success. At that time in his life, happiness was synonymous to achievement—or at least the active notion of  _not_  losing.  
  
Merlin makes a frustrated sound at the computer and pushes it further down the bed, flopping back with a sigh. His arms are limp over his head, dangling off the edge of the mattress.  
  
"Tough life?" Arthur asks, flicking the ash over the window sill. The wind whistles and finds its way into the room with a sharp gust, fluttering the papers of his reports, making the end of his cigarette glow red.  
  
"A-levels next week," Merlin tells the ceiling, absently fiddling with the handle of Arthur's suitcase that's peeking out from under the bed. He can't see what it is he's tugging at.  
  
"On your birthday?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Shit," Arthur says, sober, and Merlin snorts. "You know where you wanna go yet?"  
  
Merlin shrugs, and he looks blank when replies, "Nowhere."  
  
"What do you mean, nowhere?"  
  
"Nowhere as in, nowhere. I don't want—" He lets go of the suitcase, fingers curling in on themselves. "I know I look like a geek, yeah, but I'm not. I'm really, really not. When I'm not failing a class I'm barely average, and. There's just no way I'll pass."  
  
Arthur frowns at him. He wants to disagree, to vehemently disagree, but that's a bit stupid—there's nothing to argue with. If Merlin's grades are bad, they're bad. There's nothing  _he_  can do about it. Instead he butts his fag against the outside wall of the house, and tosses it out into the rain. "Have you told your mum?" he asks.  
  
Merlin chokes out a laugh. "D'you think I'm mental? Of course not. Man, that'd—" He laughs again. "She'd kill me. And then she'd cry or something. Fuck." He brings down a hand to scrub over his face. "I was trying not to think about it. Just gonna do the exams and then, just. I'll see. Whatever."  
  
"Would you want to go?" Arthur asks, closing the window. "If you could."  
  
"Dunno. Wouldn't know what I'd want to . . . you know. Be. Study. Rather not study at all, if I could." Suddenly, with a loud sigh to indicate the conversation is over, Merlin flips over—onto his belly, leaning over the mattress to look under the bed. "What  _is_  this," he says, tugging at the suitcase.  
  
Arthur says nothing, watches as Merlin pulls the thing onto the bed—opens the zip, not asking for permission, and starts rifling through the discarded items there. An old electric shaver, an external harddrive, flip-flops, some CDs, a paperback that's been pressed up against some random item and now its pages are folded at odd angles. A wallet for business cards from years back, just in case. Merlin flips through it, finds a picture in the back, wriggles it out of its casing and inspects it, asking, "Whose is this?"  
  
Arthur tosses the papers to the carpet, and goes over to the bed, sits close so he can see what picture Merlin is talking about. He smiles, says, "Mine."  
  
Merlin looks up at him, amused.  
  
"She was my dog until I went to uni. Well, mine and my sister's, but fucked if I didn't have to do all the walking and feeding since day one." He takes the picture from Merlin, then the wallet. Gently pushes it back into the plastic. "Marge, my sister, wanted to call her Bella. I hated that. But then she'd only listen to that name, which sucked, so I called her Belly. And then that worked just as well, and then she was always Belly."  
  
"Oh." Merlin watches Arthur's hand as he tosses the wallet back into the suitcase. "You don't have a dog now?"  
  
"Well. Obviously. I'm here, aren't I?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. Right." He looks up, quick and nervous, and something about it makes Arthur want to move away. He does, just a little, scooting down the other end of the bed. Merlin either ignores it or doesn't notice, now going for all the pockets of the suitcase, finding them mostly empty until—  
  
"Oi!" His face lights up, and Arthur already knows what he's found before he lifts his hand to reveal the old, greyish joint.  
  
"No," Arthur says, immediately. "Put it back. That's not—"  
  
"Aw, come on!" Merlin pushes himself to his knees, excited. "Please! Mum won't be back for  _ages_ , and it's not like I've never—"  
  
"No! Merlin, there's—" Arthur makes to grab for it, but Merlin fumbles back, smiling—sitting against the headboard. "Do you even know how old that thing is? No. Put it back. Your mother would, I don't—I don't even know, but no. Put it back.  _Now._ "  
  
Merlin's smile fades a little, settles into something more stubborn.  
  
" _Now_ , Merlin."  
  
"Fine! Ugh." He makes a show of shoving it back into the suitcase, then pulling his sleeves down and crossing his arms. Brooding. "Don't see the point in having a spliff if you're not gonna do anything with it."  
  
Arthur huffs a laugh, moving on the bed to close the suitcase. "Go watch the telly or something."  
  
"'M not a child!"  
  
Arthur looks up, zips the case closed. He smiles, indulgent as he says, "You're not a child."  
  
"Fuck off." Merlin pushes off the bed. "I'm gonna get something to eat," he says, shuffling toward the door.  
  
"Sounds like a good idea," Arthur says, pushing the suitcase back under the bed. Merlin leaves the room with a V-sign over his shoulder, and Arthur smiles, listens to the thudding steps down the staircase. When he hears the television go on downstairs, he gets off the bed—picks his reports up from the floor, and settles back into his chair. Pats his pockets down for his cigarette packet.  
  
*  
  
"Be grateful," Guy had told him before he'd left, clapping his shoulder once, his back once. Then, quieter, "You have the room with the shower. No one is asking you to stop singing when you want to be singing."  
  
Arthur laughed, not quite sure at what, and told Guy he'd miss his singing. The old man nodded, thin-lipped, and placed a cool hand on Arthur's cheek, as though agreeing on something significant. Arthur smiled a little, cheek folding under the man's palm, and Guy tapped the side of his face twice before moving away to bid goodbye to Merlin—holding his arms out, saying, " _Merlín!_ " like it's an inside joke. The boy was taller than him by a head, but he held him down close in a hug, and Arthur could see the muscles in Merlin's jaw work as Guy told him something important and quiet.  
  
Arthur will be gone before the summer's ends. He'd probably never see Guy again. Sad, that, he'd thought to himself—looking up to Ms Wyllt standing in the hallway, meeting her gaze. Her eyes were red, the twist of her shadowy smile apologetic. Behind her the door was open, the uneasy weather already storming through the trees lining the street—pulling off leaves, making the leaner trunks bend reluctantly. The room was getting chillier the longer they stood there, waving Guy off, and even when Arthur had grumbled over closing the goddamn door already, watching Merlin stand in the pathway as the car drove off—he couldn't get over the irrational need to leave it open just a little while longer, half recognising the moment already. When he'll think back, in years' time, there will be sun in this memory. Everything will be brighter, Guy's words would have so much more meaning, and the two minutes of standing on the doorstep will stretch into hours, into a significant silence, into technicolours and cinematic filters.  
  
At that moment, though, it was just him muttering as Merlin shuffled back up the path, nudging the boy inside with a shove to the shoulder, shutting the door behind him with a shiver, commenting again on the cold.  
  
*  
  
He's long ago given up on the reports when he hears the phone go downstairs. He's on the bed, watching tv on the small, bulky set on the other side of the room—lying back, one arm under his head, tired and contemplating closing the door and having a wank and a nap. He glances into the hall as the phone continues to ring, waiting for Merlin to pick it up. He doesn't, though, and for a moment the phone stops—then continues, a shrill tone, and Arthur puts the telly on mute, sits up. Waits, listens. Nothing.  
  
"Merlin," he shouts, giving it a second before, "Merlin, pick up the phone."  
  
No reply. The phone keeps on ringing.  
  
He mutters a  _bloody hell_  through clenched teeth and pushes himself off the bed, scratching a hand through his hair as he jogs down the stairs. He's halfway down the second flight when the smell hits him, muff and thickly sweet, and oh, he knows this and oh, that little—  
  
"—fucker." Arthur, bustling into the kitchen, grabs the phone without answering—first making a detour to the living room where he finds Merlin sprawled out on the carpet, the telly muted where it's flashing the room with shades of blue, the smoke from the joint Merlin is holding wafting up, curling through the room.  
  
The boy is holding the stick between forefinger and thumb, arm overhead as he brings it down—sucking in, holding his breath. Smoke filters out through his lips.   
  
"What the fuck," Arthur says, a statement more than a question, and the phone rings in his hand. And then, louder, "What the fuck, Merlin!"  
  
Merlin lolls his head to the side to look at Arthur, blinking slowly, and he smiles. A small, righteous smile.  
  
Arthur, in reply, holds up the phone and shakes it a little in Merlin's direction, asking what, "—the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how long the phone's been ringing? It's probably your mother, twerp. Aren't you even—" He stops himself, then trails off, shaking his head with a frustrated sound and a, "Fuck, Merlin!", before answering the phone, walking out into the hallway.  
  
It is Ms Wyllt. She sounds muffled and faraway, and Arthur knows what her mobile looks like—a bulky old contraption that she used to be really proud of some odd five years back but that now looks oddly out of time and simple. There's a beeping of a truck backing up in the background, some people shouting, and she asks if everything is okay, and why hasn't anyone been picking up, and how is Merlin doing?  
  
"Taking a shower," Arthur says, giving the living room an annoyed sideways glance. Merlin is not paying attention, scratching between his brows with a thumbnail. "Yeah, we—we went to the park, kick some ball, thought the rain was over? But it wasn't, and we got all wet, and, yes. He's, yeah, showering. And I was upstairs with the telly on, I didn't hear, but it's—it's all fine, really, we're . . . "  
  
Ms Wyllt wants to know what they're having for dinner. She wants to know if Merlin has been studying at all, and also, also by the way, also this is awfully inconvenient and I'm sorry to put you on the spot like this, but they cancelled the ferry because of the storm and the next one is only leaving tomorrow afternoon, and would—"you mind keeping an eye on him for me until then? I'll be home as soon as I can, I just don't want to—just, leave Guy before he's, you know. So if you can just, keep an eye on him, make sure he finishes some of his work, that'll be—wonderful. I would . . . be very grateful. You don't mind though, do you?"  
  
No, of course Arthur doesn't mind, he says, they'll manage just fine—not to worry and also, is she going to be alright for the night? Have they somewhere to stay for now, until the next ferry? Yes? Good, that's good, and he'll keep the phone at hand in case she calls again—and yes, will keep her updated, certainly and not to worry too much, and he'll see her tomorrow, and yes, goodbye, yes that too—yes, bye, goodbye Hun—yes, Hunith, good—ha, goodbye!  
  
Arthur tosses the phone at Merlin when he walks back into the living room. Merlin is slow to react, trying to catch it even after it's already bounded off his belly, confused for a moment until he sees what it was. He laughs breathily, settles back onto the carpet, and Arthur kicks at him, lightly, calls him a,  
  
"Little shithead. What kind of bloody trick was that?" And then, settling down next to Merlin and holding out his hand, "Give me that, then." He takes the joint from Merlin, mumbles, "If we're at it anyway," and takes a drag. He closes his eyes at the taste, feeling a strange kind of nostalgia, remembering moments of college through the hazy shade of weed. He holds it in, holds, breathes it out and lies back—slowly, stretching out his legs. He takes another drag, and another, waiting for the vague slowness to catch up. After a moment, he holds the cigarette out for Merlin again, and rather than accept it the boy wraps a warm, dry hand around Arthur's wrist—tugs it down, sucks at the stick like that, positioned between Arthur's fingers. He lets go, then, eyes closed, breathing out the smoke without any effort—letting it curl up over his lips, away.  
  
Arthur stares out of the corner of his eyes, the feeling hot and trudging up from the pit of his stomach, and he sharply turns to stare at the ceiling—taking a long drag that burns at the roof of his mouth, makes him cough, lift a little off the floor. He settles down with a hand over his chest, swallowing a few times, and there—there it is. The feeling of his heart beating in his tongue, the weight of his head, the weed making it all stranger than it is.  
  
"Hey Arthur."  
  
Arthur smiles, mouth feeling strange with the stretch, says, "Yeah?"  
  
"Hey Arthur," Merlin says, again.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"Do you know," Merlin starts. "Do you know, do you know that I'vvvvve . . . "  
  
"That you've what, Merlin?"  
  
"Do you know." He pauses, waits a long time, then, "Do you know that I've never smoked weed before?"  
  
Arthur's smile widens. He breathes out a laugh, softly. "How unexpected," he says, gives Merlin back the cigarette. "You mum's coming back tomorrow. Storm, with the . . . " Once Merlin takes it, Arthur uses his free hand to make a vague gesture. "Boat."  
  
"That, is, cool," Merlin articulates, making the syllables clear for no apparent reason. Arthur hums his assent and looks to the ceiling again, watches the lights and shadows the television casts with every change of angle, the cutting from camera one, to two, to one, to three, and outside the wind is beating against the windows, the rain a blanket of white noise. The house feels big, but not too big, but bigger, bigger, bigger than, it, was, before.  
  
*  
  
They're in the kitchen eating, and the radio is switched on some odd frequency—an oldies station—playing one or another Beach Boys song about cars, which could be any of their songs, really. Merlin was hungry, and the notion of food had made Arthur hungry by association, and so they ventured out into the cupboards, rummaging loud and distracted for anything. There wasn't much they could make, or knew how to make, but bread, cheese and tinned corn seemed like a reasonable compromise to their undiscriminating idea of food. Then Merlin found the crisps, and Arthur suggested some biscuits, and the result is weird and distasteful but amazing, somehow, and how didn't they think of this before, Merlin wants to know.  
  
"Corn on bread," he says, making himself another sandwich. "So simple. How did we never even . . . "  
  
"I don't know!" Arthur intones, making a mess of the table with everything that spills out his own creation of bread, crisps and cheese. "I'm eating this  _forever._ Forever. Ugh," he adds, heartfelt, and tries to bite down the other end of the sandwich to keep the content from falling out.  
  
"This is pretty awesome," Merlin says at some point, when they've made their way up to Arthur's room in search of an elusive second joint, supposedly buried somewhere in the depths of Arthur's suitcase.  
  
"What is this," Arthur asks, padding down one of the inner pockets.  
  
"I thought it'd be scarier, or," he gives a vague shrug, a slight shake of his head. "Like, your mind would go weird on you or something, like nightmares and shit, but it's . . . nice. And lovely. And nice." He smiles, slow. "And warm."  
  
"I turned up the heating," Arthur tells him, finds the joint, and then another, and recalls that that's all he had—bought one evening after work, in London, hoping something interesting would happen. Nothing ever did, and while this wasn't awfully interesting, as illicit or exciting as what he had in mind, it was just as well. And either way, the back of Merlin's head looks awfully pretty on the way down the stairs, his hair curly and a soft kind of brown, and also Arthur thinks he can feel the patterns of the wallpaper when he runs his hand along the wall as they descend. He'd paid good money for this shit. It is very strong. He realises it is very strong.  
  
A familiar song comes on the radio, and Merlin decides to dance a little. Not exactly dance, more close his eyes and sway, mouthing along to the words, hands running through his hair. Arthur remembers the name halfway in, and decides that is his sign to join in, telling Merlin over and over again that this is called Daydream, and that band, that's the Wallace Collection, and that did he know, did he know that it was covered by the Beta Band? And did he know how weird that was, because the song is a cover of the Swan Lake, and that's a cover of a cover of a cover dating back to the nineteenth century and—  
  
"Ssh," Merlin says, putting his hand over Arthur's mouth, still dancing—swaying. The na-na-nas of the song keep on and on in the background, and Merlin closes his eyes again, hand still in place. "I love this song. I love it."  
  
An indistinct period of time later they're back on the living room floor, only now it's messier, some plates and glasses and crisps strewn around. They're smoking the second one, but not too much, Arthur says. This is strong.  
  
"Do you care that I'm gay?" Merlin asks, handing him the stick. "I told you. You never said anything about it."  
  
"What do I . . . " Arthur starts, feeling a bit too hazy to articulate his thoughts the right way. "I'm almost thirty," he says, and in his mind it makes more sense. He tries to clarify, "I have nothing to do with . . . Like. What I care shouldn't, matter, it . . . " He trails off. Merlin doesn't reply for a long time, processing, and then—  
  
"Have you ever thought you were gay?"  
  
Something clenches in Arthur's chest at the question, making him feel distantly nervous—a sweaty, uncomfortably tight kind of feeling that makes the air seem thicker when he breathes in. "Dunno," he says, frowning, giving Merlin the smoke without taking a drag.  
  
Merlin gives him a look, a long look, and says, "Hey." He sucks on the cigarette, a long, deep drag, and keeps it in—shifts closer, puts the hand holding the smoke on Arthur's chest, and rolls half onto him, pressed up against his side. He tilts his head, angles his face to Arthur's, waiting, and Arthur places a hand on the boy's hip—tilts his face down in return. Their lips brush, and the heat of it thuds through Arthur's head, heartbeat painful at his temples. Merlin opens his mouth, lets the smoke out, and Arthur breathes it in, hot and wet and bad, so so bad. He tries to turn his head away, the sluggish little bit that he can manage, and Merlin drops his face into his neck, close and breathing and making it hard to think. He noses along the line of Arthur's throat, places a slow, hot-lipped kiss under his jaw, and then another, lower, to the point where his heart is pulsing just below the surface.  
  
Arthur breathes in as much air as he can, overwhelmed by an unfamiliar wave of lust, and in that same moment trails his hand down Merlin's leg—hauls him in, rolls into him, presses their bodies roughly together and revelling in it for a small second—the hitch of Merlin's breath against his neck, the brief slide of the boy's tongue to his skin—and then rolls away on the next exhale, rolls away to sit up, clamber to his feet, scrubbing his hands over his face. He's shaking a little, walking out of the room, shuffling toward the kitchen. He washes his face with cold water, tells himself to get a grip on himself, to get it together, snap out of it, snap out, snap, snap—  
  
He turns off the tap. Leans onto the counter, water dripping down his nose into the sink. It's gone dark outside, and the storm still whistles on. Upstairs the trees are scratching against the windows. He licks his lips, breathes deep again, and pushes off. His head feels heavy and not quite right as he walks back to the living room, his eyes a size too big when he stops at the entryway—looking at Merlin, lying on the floor as he'd left him, only now with an arm draped over his face, glasses discarded by his head. His chest is heaving, and his arousal is tenting his sweats.  
  
Arthur moves without quite realising it. The telly flashes to a colourless scene and the room falls into a momentary darkness, the long shadows pulling in—blinking out of existence, only to reappear a stuttering second later. The rug is soft under Arthur's bare feet, soft as he walks, soft to his knees when he crouches—kneels at Merlin's feet, leaning forward over the boy—bracing himself with two hands on either side of Merlin's hips, poised on all fours. Merlin notices something, maybe the heat or movement or noise, and his arm slips off his face, over his head. Arthur crawls over him, slowly, and Merlin watches through heavy lidded eyes—attention soft with the haziness of being high, but still fixed, tracking Arthur's movements all the way up and then they're face to face, Arthur hovering above, the hanging fabric of his loose t-shirt brushing Merlin's chest. Merlin looks up at him, nostrils flared and eyes lazy, horny, and when his foot rounds Arthur's calve—drags higher, nudges him closer by the back of his thigh—Arthur's elbows buckle one by one, and suddenly he's very, very close.  
  
Merlin hooks his leg over the back of Arthur's, gaze flicking from his mouth to his eyes until Arthur's too close to see what Merlin's looking at. He feels drunk and weird and desperate, nosing Merlin's cheek and pulling back—doing the same to the line of his jaw, nudging their noses together, almost brushing a kiss to his mouth—pulling back. Looking at Merlin. Leaning in, a fraction, pulling back, tilting his head, his face, repeating the same hesitant movement one more time before continuing down, heart pounding at his temples. His mouth slightly parted, and so is Merlin's, and so the first touch is a shared breath—sickly sweet and warm. Arthur doesn't make it a kiss of lips, angling his head to the right and opening his mouth, slipping in his tongue and meeting Merlin's halfway. It's wet right from the beginning, sloppily noisy in the static silence of the room. Merlin is slackening his jaw, trying to suck down more of Arthur—licking up, sometimes slipping and licking a stripe down the side of his mouth, noting it with an annoyed sound from the back of his throat, biting at Arthur's skin and quickly seeking out his mouth again. Arthur, for his part, just can't seem to get enough of the slick slide of Merlin's tongue, the dangerous way it flashes something down his spine—swells in the pit of his stomach, dirty and needy, making him roll his hips down into the cradle of the boy's hips. Saliva smears around their mouths, Merlin's shoddy attempt at shaving rubbing their skin red and sensitive. They breathe more into it, Merlin sighs high and slides his tongue under Arthur's, sucks down on it. He bucks up, heady, rubbing his erection against Arthur's hip.  
  
Arthur kisses him harder. He is so aroused, so fucking turned on, grinding down and pushing Merlin into the rug—one hand latching onto Merlin's hair where it's on the ground, forcefully tilting his head for an even better angle, sharp and filthier, the wet noises punctuated only by their throaty hums, the sighs muffled against each other's mouths. More skin, Arthur thinks, distantly, and hears a car come to a stop outside—the peeping brakes and a motor turning off louder than the wind. It takes a moment for the sound to sink, but when it does—it does. He pulls back instantly, looking up at the window as though he could see outside. It's just dark, though, so he glances back down at Merlin—eighteen and crazed, mouth swollen and shiny, pupils blown and dark and the colour high on his face, heaving breaths, heaving, and Arthur doesn't know how—how he—he even—  
  
He rolls off Merlin, sits on the floor with his back to the boy—running a shaky hand through his hair, eyes closed.  
  
"What?" Merlin breathes behind him. Arthur can hear him sit up next, can feel his heat along his side, his back. "No, come on. Arthur," he says, pressing his face to the side of Arthur's neck. "It's the neighbours, it's not—Said she'd be back tomorrow, didn't she. You, just . . . come on." He mouths the skin there, tries to coax Arthur's face to his, murmuring, "Come on, Arthur, just—don't—"  
  
"No," Arthur says, turning his face away. He feels wrecked.  
  
Merlin puts his mouth on his jaw now. "Come on," he murmurs, using his hand now to turn Arthur's face to his. "Let's just . . . "  
  
"No, Merlin—" Arthur tries, half turning his face again, but Merlin's hand is insistent on his jaw, and his lips are so full, so beautifully full and soft and his tongue, god, _god_  his tongue and—they're kissing again, making out like that, over Arthur's shoulder, Merlin's hand twisted in his hair.  
  
"Nmm," Arthur says into it, frowning, pulling away. "No," he repeats, breathless. There's a line of spit between their mouths, and it's too obscene so he turns away—cocking his head out of Merlin's grip with an irritated quirk of his neck.  
  
"What?" Merlin breathes again, this time a little indignant. "Why?"  
  
"You're—fuck. High. Eighteen.  _Shit._ " He squints his eyes shut, tries—despite the wooziness—to get up, Merlin clings on to his shirt for a moment, but lets go easily enough.  
  
"You're high too!" he accuses, still sounding breathless.  
  
"I'm a—" Arthur peers into the hallway, swallows. He can still taste Merlin. Smell him. "I shouldn't have . . . ever, I . . . " He glances about him for a second, hapless. The room is a mess. "You should go to sleep," he tells Merlin, not looking at him. "We'll clean up tomorrow."  
  
"Fuck you," Merlin says, voice odd as Arthur makes his way out of the room. And then again, softer, sounding more distanced—he probably lay down again. "Fuck you. Fuck . . . " he trails off, breath catching in his throat.   
  
Arthur has to steady himself against the doorway.  
  
*  
  
He wakes up in his bed, no recollection how he got there. His phone is ringing, somewhere, and it takes him a moment to realise it's under his pillow—that that's why he heard it in the first place. His eyes are heavy and his mind is muzzy, slow, and he squints at the screen before trying to clear his throat, answering with a hoarse greeting.  
  
Ms Wyllt marvels at that he's still asleep, at this hour, good natured and laughing at Arthur's feeble attempt at saying that he wasn't—just taking a nap, really, at . . .  
  
He glances at the alarm clock. One in the afternoon.  
  
"I'm on my way home, is all I wanted to say," she tells him. "Is Merlin still asleep, as well?"  
  
"Yes," he answers, automatically, but he doesn't know. He tries to remember where he'd seen Merlin last, and on remembering immediately wishes he hadn't. _Merlin._  Fuck.  
  
He rings off saying he'll go wake the kid up, and that he'll see her later, and that Gaius was safe on the ferry—he hoped?  _Yes,_  she says, yes and thank you, Arthur. For helping, thank you and—  
  
"Of course, yeah. No problem." He sits up in bed, digging a set of fingers into his eyes. "Goodbye."  
  
Arthur gives himself a moment to breathe, to slow down his racing pulse—and then he's pushing back the covers, he's up, he's jogging down the stairs and raiding the rooms on his way. Merlin is not in his own room, he's in his mother's—crawled into her bed, passed out in sweats and shirt, face down into one of the pillows. Arthur hesitates at the door. His heart swells in his chest for a wild moment, taking in the sight—the back of the boy's neck flushed with sleep, the way his shirt is riding up to his ribs. The swell of his ass in the grey bottoms, the patch of skin visible at the small of his back.  
  
Arthur's head gives a painful throb, and he frowns at himself—closing his eyes, turning away. The house smells like weed. He smells like it, too, his hair and clothes, and in light of that he decides on an order of things: he'll take care of this later—the mess of the house will come first. He hurries down the last flight of stairs, ignoring the rubbish they'd left about yesterday in favour of pushing aside the curtains and levering the windows open, in the living room and kitchen and the back door too, letting the air in through the garden. It's a sunny day today, but the storm has left behind a whirl of broken branches and muddy grounds, making the weather seem like something of a bait—as though the rains and winds would start up again the moment everyone takes outside again. And surely enough, five minutes into sorting out the kitchen—putting the food back in the fridge, the cabinets, the pantry—a noisy shower starts up again, through the sun, and Arthur glances out, looking for some kind of rainbow. There isn't one: the trees are obscuring. The garden is too crowded.  
  
He takes a quick shower, washing his hair and brushing his teeth at the same time. He gets soap in his mouth, groans at it and spits but keeps on brushing, scrubbing, smelling at himself to make sure. When he's done he doesn't give himself much time to think it over, calling out "Up!" as he walks into Ms Wyllt's bedroom—pulling open the curtains, listening to Merlin grunt, seeing him burrow deeper into the pillow at the light flooding the room.  
  
"Your mum's going to be home in like an hour," he says. "And you smell like you've spent the night smoking up, so—So. Up." He passes the bed, tugs at Merlin's ankle, pulling him down the bed a small distance then letting go. Merlin slowly props himself up on his forearms, turning to give Arthur a confused, bleary look.  
  
"Shower," Arthur explains. "You smell."  
  
Merlin squints at him. He doesn't have his glasses, and it's clear how much that adds to his wooziness. One side of his face is creased, flushed with sleep, and it's one of those days that his eyes are exceptionally light, an eerily clear blue.  
  
Arthur walks out of the room with a final reminder that his mother is on her way, should be here in an hour—half hour, twenty minutes!—going back downstairs to finish cleaning up the mess. When Merlin joins him in the kitchen some ten minutes later, Arthur acknowledges him with a quick glance over his shoulder, slowing down in his washing of the plates—but not stopping, quickly turning back to the dishes, blinking at his hands.  
  
"What's the—" Merlin starts at the same time as Arthur tells him that,  
  
"There's a stain in the rug. You spilt some fizzy on it or something. I think your mum keeps some of that—stain spray, thing, that, somewhere. I'd put some of that on it before she gets here, if I were you."  
  
Merlin is quiet for a moment. "Right," he says, then, sounding apprehensive. Arthur gets louder with the dishes, clattering, trying to do it faster. He breaks a glass, curses a low  _fuck_ , and drops it in the soapy water—grabbing for the tea towel, drying his hands.  
  
"Arthur," Merlin tries, but again Arthur drowns out whatever might've followed with a,  
  
"You know what? Never mind. I'll do the rug, you dry the dishes." He tosses the towel onto the counter, jaw clenched as he moves to pass by Merlin without a glance. But the boy's got closer than Arthur had thought, takes a step along with Arthur—catches his sleeve, halts him in motion.  
  
Arthur's attention snaps down, to the hand clinging at his arm. He looks down, questioning and harsh, and Merlin at first tries to keep his gaze levelled—to hold it, glare back defiantly, but there's an uncertain tremble at his jaw and soon enough he lets go, slow and awkward.  
  
"It's not my fault, you know," he says, defensive. "You kissed me. You kissed  _me_ , I didn't do anything. I didn't—make you or nothing, so, so you can't just . . . " He breathes in. The ends of his sleeves are caught in his palm. He pulls them down, nervously. "Like, be angry with me. I didn't do anything."  
  
"Did I say you did?" Arthur barks back. "No. I didn't. So we're clear on that it's my fault, so let's just never . . . " He can't find an exact way to finish that, sucks in his cheeks a little as tilts his head away from Merlin's direction—looking at the wall instead, annoyed. An instant later he makes to walk to the living room with a muttered,  _"Jesus,"_  but Merlin stops him again—doesn't so much grab him as—  
  
"Yeah, well, sorry if I sucked," the boy calls after, voice louder with anger. "Haven't exactly been kissed before, yeah, so I haven't had an awful lot of practice. Haven't—" He stops, a fraction, as Arthur pauses—closes his eyes and turns his face up, exasperated with a new wave of guilt.  
  
"Should've given me a heads up, though, then I could've—had a few practice rounds on my hand or something, warmed myself up, made sure I wouldn't turn you off by being so bad at it. Right? Right, Arthur?"  
  
Arthur blinks up at the ceiling. He turns, cautiously, sighs. "You're eighteen," he starts, and Merlin interjects with a quick,  
  
"Nineteen next week!"  
  
" _Eighteen,_ " Arthur talks over him, drowns out the last of his words. "I'm—Merlin. I'm twenty-eight. Surely,  _surely_  you can see how this is a bad idea. How this is an incredibly, catastrophically bad—"  
  
"No! No I don't see how . . . " Merlin glances down for a fraction, then up, frowning. "I don't care about any of it, alright? I don't give a shit how old you are, I'm—I'm in love with you. I'm . . . "  
  
He looks so self-conscious, so abashed—still worrying his sleeves in his hands, part angry, part wary—that Arthur feels bad for his immediate reaction, but can't help the cough of laughter all the same, the tired amusement that follows. "You're not in love with me, Merlin!" he tells him, rolling his head back a little to show how ridiculous this all is. "You're—God. You're confused, alright? We've just been hanging out a lot lately, and you're mixing up feelings here, you don't know what you're—"  
  
"Shut up! Shut up. You don't know what I feel." He's blushing now, an uneven, deep colour up his cheeks, down his neck. "You don't get to tell me what I feel. That's mine, isn't it? If I say I'm in bloody love with you, then that's mine. Either you tell me what you think or you don't, but don't tell me what I know I— And just because I'm eighteen doesn't mean I don't—know how it—" He chokes on it, a little, a hand wrapped in the fabric of his sleeve vaguely pushing at his chest—the gesture, more than anything, finishing his statement.  
  
"But it does," Arthur says, softer now. "You're just a child, Merlin."  
  
"I'm  _not._  I'm bloody legal, aren't I! I can do whatever, even the fucken law says I'm—"  
  
" _You're a child._  I know this sounds like—everyone says you'll understand when you're older, and that it's bullocks, but it's true, alright? I promise. You're only a child and right now you have to believe me when I say that—"  
  
"Stop saying that I'm a child! I am not a child. I am  _not_  a—"  
  
" _But you are!_ " Arthur shouts it, startling Merlin into silence. The frustration is great enough that he steps toward the boy, approaches him to grab him by the shoulders, giving him a little shake as he insists through clenched teeth that—"Can't you see? Jesus, Merlin."  
  
Merlin stares at him, eyes huge behind his glasses, nostrils flared. He seems frightened, now, and also hurt. Arthur, so angry with it a second before, deflates—his grip slackening on Merlin's shoulders. They're almost as tall these days: Arthur barely has a couple of inches on him. He smooths his hands down Merlin's arms a little, a quiet apology, and feels a shiver run through the boy. That same swell of affection lodges at the base of his throat again, and he runs his hands back over Merlin's shoulders, rests them at either side of his neck—thumbs lining Merlin's jaw as he moves in, presses their foreheads together.  
  
"You think this is easy for me?" he says, voice low, quiet. "It's not. It's not easy. God. If—if you were ten years older, Merlin. Hell, if you were five yea—"  
  
Merlin's reply is quick. Grabbing the sides of Arthur's face, cutting off his words with a hard, pressing kiss to his lips.  
  
"Shut up," he says when letting up, leaving only a small distance. "Don't say that." And then he's moving in again, pleading with earnest, soft kisses—chaste and on the mouth, their lips dry and sticking together on every slight retreat, every time Merlin moves to kiss his bottom lip, then his upper, this angle—that.  
  
I'm in love with you, he'd said. Arthur remembers the last time anyone had said that to him. It hadn't sounded half as honest, had—in the end—turned out to be not very true. A lie, Arthur had called it. Gwen had preferred to name the ugly thing a change of heart. The memory churns hot and dangerous in his chest and he drowns it out loudly by winding his hands into Merlin's hair, pulling him closer as he tilts his head to align—sucks in a lip, slips in a tongue, groans into it. Merlin hums a broken little sound from the back of his throat, fingers gripping at Arthur's hair in return. He's standing on his tiptoes, clinging on, kissing back as hard as Arthur is licking into him. They're swaying, the both of them, with Merlin's give when Arthur sucks and the bites down, leans into him, and then Arthur's slight stumble back when Merlin returns the favour with a maddening, needy sound that Arthur can feel in his mouth—can feel in Merlin's tongue, sliding under his, restless and searching and driving toward something more.  
  
Arthur slips his hands down his chest, rounds his waist and pulls their bodies flush together. Merlin  _umph_ s, whispers a shaky  _yeah_  into the kiss, and when Arthur's fingers edge under the hem of his jumper, the shirt he's wearing under—start wandering up, feeling at the hot, naked skin—Merlin's mouth goes slack, his breathing hitching. Arthur's lust clouds his head more thickly now, a heavy weight behind his eyes and low in his belly, breathing hot against Merlin's wet lips as he backs him up against the counter. Merlin reacts in kind, freeing his hands of Arthur's hair to lean back—jump up onto the surface, scoot far enough to wrap his legs around Arthur's hips, pull him in. He's higher now, and Arthur has to mumble his  _oh god_  at the hitch of Merlin pelvis, into Merlin's neck, chasing his words down with a kiss—sucking at Merlin's adam's apple, making the boy keen. He has vague plans of staying there, of finding his way to Merlin's ear and seeing what his mouth could do with that, but Merlin tugs at the back of his head—hand fisted in his hair—reeling him back into an open-mouthed kiss, their hips rolling against each other with small, jerky movements.  
  
Arthur's hands are at the waistband of Merlin's bottoms, dipping lower. Merlin exhales sharply, lips between Arthur's nose and lip, and outside a car pulls up the gravel. Arthur kisses Merlin's chin, then pauses—freezes. The car's engine stops.  
  
Merlin stills.  
  
"Your mum," Arthur whispers, still close. The next second he's clambering back with a quiet, "Shit. Shit!", trying to smooth down his hair, straighten out his clothes.  
  
"What—" Merlin starts, shakily climbing off the counter. "What do I do?" he asks, sounding small, and Arthur is about to bark back an obvious  _act normal!_ , but then he sees how flustered Merlin looks—how he's pulling down the end of his jumper over the front of his bottoms, trying to hide his erection.  
  
"Fuck." Arthur glances behind him, toward the hallway. Outside the car door opens, closes. "Can't you—you know. Think of anything . . . "  
  
"No!" Merlin whispers back, angry. "It's not exactly—" he gestures vaguely at his legs, and Arthur isn't sure what he means but they don't have time either way. He looks about for a moment, a little lost, then—  
  
"Go to the bathroom. Go. I'll say you're—showering, I'll think of—"  
  
The door keys. Ms Wyllt is rummaging with the lock, and Merlin is staring at him with huge, panicked eyes. He looks  _wrecked._  
  
"Go. Go!"  
  
When Merlin starts walking Arthur ushers him to a quicker pace, pushing at his shoulder. Merlin starts with half a jog, then faster, running up the stairs. Arthur watches him from the hallway, and before disappearing into the bathroom Merlin glances back—gives a quick, nervous smile, eyes lingering.  
  
Arthur's heart stutters. He makes himself turn away, running a hand over his face, temples thudding.  
  
The front door opens. The bathroom door closes shut.   
  
"Oh!" Ms Wyllt says when she sees Arthur standing a few convenient steps into the hallway. "Hello!"  
  
*  
  
Guy's seat is empty during dinner, the round dining table not filling out as well with only three. It's strange and there's a gap between Arthur and the wall, the wall and Merlin, and at some point Merlin moves his chair—saying that it looks wobbly, when he's on the other end, and no one's sitting beside Arthur.  
  
"What, I'm not sitting next to him?" his mother asks, half joking. "I don't count?"  
  
Merlin stares down at his plate, awkward, and Arthur feels suddenly so uneasy he can barely eat what's left of his dinner. It doesn't get any better when Merlin, when his mother gets up to get the yoghurt, tries to tangle their fingers together under the table—brushing over Arthur's wrist, his long fingers clinging, curling.  
  
Arthur shakes him off. Shoots him a stern look. A minute later, Merlin tries again.  
  
"Hey, Merlin," Arthur starts, a bit too loud for casual. "D'you still have that CD you borrowed from me?"  
  
Merlin gives him a funny look, is clearly about to ask  _what CD are you—_  
  
"In your  _room_ ," Arthur enunciates, "is where I think I saw it last. Let's go get it, yeah?"  
  
"Right—now?" Merlin asks, quiet. He's trying to communicate something with his eyes.  
  
"Yes. I—need it. Now." He glances at Ms Wyllt, who's looking at him over the door of the fridge. "For a, uh. Presentation. That I have. Tomorrow. So I need it. It's . . . very . . . " He clears his throat. Excuses himself with a curt nod, a smile, saying they'll be right back and—coming, Merlin?  
  
"Uh," Merlin says, and, catching Arthur's tight expression. He seems to understand something at that—hurries after, chair scraping as he gets to his feet.  
  
Upstairs, in Merlin's room, Arthur gets out as much as a hissed, "What the hell do you think you're—!" before Merlin is too close again, pressing their chests together, nuzzling against Arthur's cheek. And oh, that can't be good, the way he goes weak at that—the way his brain give way for a quiet moment, clouding up—not good, that. Cannot be good at all.  
  
"Merlin," he warns, or tries to warn. Even to his own ears it sounds small, his heart not in it.  
  
Merlin traces his fingertips along the shell of Arthur's ear. Catches his earlobe between finger and thumb. He starts kissing him, sweet and slow, and Arthur's hands settle on his hips without much encouragement.  
  
"You can't do that," Arthur says, between shallow kisses, aware now of how easily he can recognise Merlin's smell—his soap, his clothes, his sweat. "When your mum's—right . . . there—you can't . . . "  
  
"It's under the table," is Merlin's justifying reasoning, a whisper to Arthur's lips. And then, "I just want to touch," he says, adding a brush of tongue to the next kiss. "Just a little."  
  
"We need to—ungh—" his words are swallowed by Merlin's mouth, suddenly earnest—rougher, his frown pressing to Arthur's cheekbone, the boy's glasses digging into his face. "Merlin," he breathes, pushing him back a little—ignoring Merlin's sway forward, trying to lean right back. "We need to talk about this, at least, we can't just . . . "  
  
Merlin's answering, "Yeah," and, "We will," is a bit too quick to sound wholly genuine. He is back where he was a moment ago, now, touching Arthur's face and kissing him, saying, "Later, okay, Arthur? Later, we'll—yeah? Arthur? I just want to—now, I just want to—"  
  
They stay upstairs for far too long. Arthur tries hard to keep it slow and easy, tries at least that since stopping altogether doesn't seem feasible—since stepping outside the heady cloud of arousal, of nearness, is close to impossible, the way everything about this quarantines him outside reach of his own intellect. The timid initiative doesn't work very well, though, and at one point Merlin's got him by the front of his shirt—tugging him down onto the narrow, single bed, Arthur breathing hard, saying,  
  
"No, Mer—no, we—need to get back down, your—"  
  
And Merlin mouthing his jaw, his hands so soft at Arthur's nape—fingers dipping below the shirt, under the neckline, pushing against muscle. Merlin moves under him, restless, and it doesn't take much—a moment later he comes riding Arthur's thigh, unable to stop even when Arthur mumbles at him to slow down. The boy is embarrassed, so embarrassed, saying sorry and  _sorry_  again and again while Arthur clambers off, while he's changing into clean jeans, shaking and fidgeting and blushing violently. Arthur tries to awkwardly reassure him, telling him that it's fine, that he wasn't much better when he was Merlin's age—that it happens. This doesn't seem to make it any better, though, so Arthur stays quiet after that. They lapse into a silence. It's only when they're at the door, when Merlin stops him with a red-faced, whispered, "You haven't—gone off me now, have you?", that Arthur laughs, low and quiet. Merlin's expression is a sight, suddenly pinched with indignant hurt, and Arthur just gathers him close—presses him to his chest, arms around the boy's frame, around his shoulders.  
  
He presses a kiss to the shell of his ear, rests his cheek to the side of Merlin's head. "No," he says.  
  
Downstairs, watching the news in the living room, Ms Wyllt comments that, "That took you two an awful long time, didn't it?"  
  
"Wanted to show Arthur something on the computer," Merlin explains, affecting an absent mumble. "Got distracted 'n all."  
  
"Well." She looks up at Arthur. "Found it?"  
  
Arthur nods. On the telly, they're predicting a sunny day with a slight chance of drizzle later on the evening.  
  
*  
  
He can't concentrate at the office. Everything is distracting him, makes him itchy and he's constantly readjusting his tie, pulling at his collar. There have been hotter days than this, but the sweat is still cold on the back of his neck, and the image of Merlin replays in his mind whenever he makes a point of not thinking about it: on the bed, in the half dark, jaw slack and humping against Arthur's thigh—coming before he himself could stop it, gasping wetly against Arthur's cheek.  
  
"Tough day?" asks Nina when she comes in with some files he'd asked for—and he's still on the same page of a report as he was an hour ago.  
  
He closes the file, tosses it onto the table and leans back in his desk chair, running his hand down over his mouth and chin.  
  
"Do you remember eighteen?" he asks, watching her arrange the papers on his table.  
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"Eighteen. Being eighteen. Do you remember how you . . . " He shrugs. "Used to be, or . . . "  
  
"I guess," she says, at length. "Why?"  
  
"No reason. Just. Thinking." He pauses. "D'you think that—when you're that age, do you think you can honestly . . . feel something, for someone? That it can mean anything, when you're that young?"  
  
She takes a moment to look at him, slightly surprised. With a slight frown she straightens from the desk, says, "Your brother has a crush on someone?"  
  
He's about to throw back a  _what brother?_ , but quickly remembers, checks himself. "Yeah. Yes." He swallows thickly. "Sort of."  
  
"It's nice that you worry, sir." She smiles, feebly. "Though I don't think—I mean, if I may say—"  
  
"What?" He's a little too eager, attempts to cover it up with a quieter, "It's alright. You can say."  
  
"Well, I just mean that, whether or not he's actually—you know. Has feelings for the girl, there's little point in trying to convince him otherwise right now, is there? If there's one thing I do remember about eighteen, is that you think you're the smartest person on earth. All advice is lost on you, you know better, all that." She makes a wavy gesture of dismissal, rolls her eyes at her eighteen-year-old self. "Best to let him make his own mistakes, you know?"  
  
"Hm," he says, distracted—staring at his desk, turning it over and over in his mind. Whether or not he means it. Whether or not he means it.  _Whether or not he means it._  
  
"Has he already said anything to her, then?" Nina asks, snapping him out of it.  
  
Arthur raises his eyebrows in apprehension, a second before he processes the question. "Oh," he says. "Um. Yes. He did."  
  
"Aw," is Nina's reply, smiling, resting the end of a binder against her heart. "Bless."  
  
*

Merlin pulls an unexpected trick after dinner, helping his mum clear up and asking, grinning, if—if he and Arthur did the dishes, later, if it'd be okay that they'd go out for a while to the park first? Arthur had been wanting to practice ball with him today, he'd lied, while Arthur had stared at the wall, pretending he wasn't a part of the conversation.  
  
"Sports?" had been his mother's reply. "After dinner?"  
  
"Just for a little while," Merlin says, looking toward Arthur as though to say,  _right?_  
  
Arthur blinks rapidly, uncomfortable. He glances away, anywhere but back at Merlin.  
  
"Alright," Ms Wyllt says, moves to run her hand through her son's mess of a hair as she adds, "As long as you do the dishes, be my guest."  
  
When they're walking out the back door, Merlin ushering an uneasy Arthur along, he's already ruffling his hair again—trying to get it whatever way he thinks it was before. They set in a brisk pace down the park path, mostly in silence. Arthur has his hands in his pockets, and now he's nervous where Merlin seems happy, shooting him looks—trying to hide his grin as they walk but unable to.  
  
"How did the exam go?" Arthur asks, squinting up at the sky. He clears his throat.  
  
"Crap," Merlin laughs. "Here. I've got you something."  
  
Arthur looks down to see Merlin holding out a small, paper-wrapped packet. He stares for a moment, then takes it. Stops in his pace. The tape looks like it's been taken off once, the colour missing in patches where it's sealed.  
  
He glances up at Merlin, wary, then opens the packet—holds it upside down, catching the content in his palm. It's a brown leather bracelet. Arthur has no idea what to do with his face, let alone what to say.  
  
"They wrapped it at the shop," Merlin explains, rocking back on his heels, hands in pockets. "But I opened it again, so I could—" He takes the bracelet from Arthur, turns it, shows him the inside where Merlin's name has been carved in. Puts it back in Arthur's palm. "Did it with a nail file. Funny, huh?"  
  
Arthur looks up at him. He feels vaguely nauseous. It must show, somehow, because Merlin's smile falters—bright expression fading into something far more wary. "What?" he asks, going into defensive. "What?"  
  
Arthur fists the bracelet, brings down his arm to his side. "Merlin . . . "  
  
"You think it's stupid." He frowns, nods to himself. "Alright. Yeah."  
  
"I don't think it's stupid, okay? I just—"  
  
"Well you try—bloody buying shit for yourself! It's not easy, okay, I didn't know what else to get you. You're sort of . . . " He gestures at all of Arthur.  
  
Arthur sighs tightly. "You don't have to  _get_  me anything, Merlin."  
  
"Oh," he says, blinks. "Okay. Well. I guess . . . " He swallows, briefly looks away, then—"Best give it back then, right? If you don't want it."  
  
"Merlin—!" He pulls back his hand as Merlin makes a swipe for it. The boy doesn't give up, upset and flushing as he tries forcibly to grab back the bracelet, making Arthur laugh with it when he insists that, "Merlin! Merlin, no, I don't—" He pushes him back a step, says, "No. I want it, okay? I do. I want it."  
  
Merlin isn't convinced. His jaw is still set.  
  
"Thank you," Arthur says. "It’s lovely."  
  
"It's not lovely," Merlin grumbles. "It's stupid. It was a stupid idea."  
  
Arthur laughs again, the uneasiness giving way to affection. "It's  _lovely_ ," he repeats, holds up the bracelet. "See?" He tries to hook it around his wrist with one hand, but can't really get it to click—the wrapping paper still bunched in his other fist. After three fumbling attempts Merlin helps, gingerly working the clasp closed. He doesn't let go right away, twisting the leather around to some kind of aesthetics. His fingers brush over Arthur's wrist, careful, and Arthur watches him watch his hand.  
  
"Thank you," he says, again, softer this time. More honest, too.  
  
Merlin looks up, first unsure and then—on catching Arthur's eye—slightly abashed, his blush creeping higher, pinker. "S'alright," he mumbles.  
  
"Don't have anything for you, though."  
  
Merlin shrugs. "'S my birthday in a few days anyway," he says. "Should give you time, yeah."  
  
Arthur smiles, leans in and—stops, glances around, sees no one in sight—continues the movement down, kissing Merlin quick and heartfelt, pulling back with a few pecks to the lips.  
  
"You're odd," Arthur says, resting their foreheads together. Merlin smiles, close and brilliant, and it goes straight to Arthur's head—making him feel reckless and infinitely younger than he is. He breathes an earnest confession of, "You drive me crazy."  
  
Merlin's smile shrinks a little. "Good crazy?"  
  
Arthur bumps their noses together. "Horrible crazy," he whispers.  
  
Merlin kisses him the next time, a little longer, muffling a grin and a laugh against Arthur's mouth—on his tiptoes, hands clinging on to the hem of Arthur's shirt. Later, back in the house, Ms Wyllt watches the news in the living room while they do the dishes—while they soap the plates, dry the cups, stare at each other helpless and stupid and infatuated, brushing touches to the small of the back—between shoulders, below the nape, exchanging heated looks followed by short, nervous smiles. Secretive, is the term, even though they hide nothing.   
  
*  
  
Arthur leaves work early. This end of June has the sun on its side, the humidity of the early month giving way to a drier heat—one that has him turning down the windows and turning up the radio, banging along to a classic song hit on his steering wheel, checking his shades in the rear-view mirror. He's changed into a shirt, parked somewhere along the road, combing water through his hair, trying to get it to look less sweaty. He's bought a bottle at kiosk, thinking ahead, and half of him knows how ridiculous he's being—these silly lengths he's going to, sniffing under the sleeves of his shirt to make sure he doesn't smell, repeating his smile at the mirror in the way he's planning to do later—but the other half is louder, more certain, a blinking neon  _WHO GIVES A SHIT_ , telling him it's worth it, absolutely the right thing to do.  
  
By the time he pulls up to the school Merlin's already waiting at the gates, squinting down the road, two hands holding on to the strap of his bag at his shoulder. He looks a picture, like this, under the shadows of the beech trees lining the street—the small pads of sunlight shifting over the sleeves of his uniform with the swaying of the branches overhead. His tie is undone, shirt untucked, hair dark with sweat and frazzled with the sweltering of day. Arthur's car blinks the sunlight off the hood, and Merlin shields his eyes with a hand—smiling already, making a half-hop to the edge of the curb, waiting for Arthur to pull up.  
  
"Hey," Merlin says, a bit breathless, as he gets in the car—dumping his bag in the back seat, already wriggling out of his jacket.  
  
Arthur replies with a smile and a nod. "Happy birthday, wizard boy," and he shifts gears, pulls back up the road, checking behind him for oncoming traffic. "How was the exam?"  
  
Merlin shrugs. "Where are we going?" he asks, and before Arthur can answer—"Fuck, it's hot."—rolling up his sleeves, unbuttoning the top of his shirt, tugging at it at his chest—pinching the fabric up and down in trying to get the air moving.  
  
Arthur gives him a look, still smiling. Merlin smiles back, flustered and restless in his seat, sitting sideways to face him.   
  
"Dunno," is Arthur somewhat belated reply, rolling down the window, hair blown sideways by the sudden gust of air. "You hungry?" he adds, louder now to be heard over the whoosh of motion.  
  
Merlin just gives a somewhat vague shrug, a smile, a, "Yeah, sure," like it doesn't really matter either way. Arthur gets it, not caring for the idea of food and unsure of whether he's hungry or not—stomach twisting all the time now, feeling like it could be anything from infatuation to a stomach flu.  
  
They end up at a place in an empty looking neighbourhood edging London, a half-assed café that based its layout on Starbucks but couldn't be bothered to serve much more than milk in the coffee. They get some sandwiches and tea and proceed to barely touch the lunch, Merlin taking one bite before launching into a story about a kid in his year who got busted for sneaking into the school the night before the exam—Arthur picking at his bread while he listens, or half listens, distracted as he watches Merlin talk, the animated way in which he lifts himself up and folds a leg under him, hands moving and smiling around the words because it's a funny story, even though he knows how it ends.  
  
Their knees bump under the table. Arthur slides his leg alongside Merlin's, and Merlin—caught in a lull in the conversation—gives him a look, hot and playful and happy, reaching over the table to nab some of Arthur's food in a quick movement. He eats it like he's just got away with something, and Arthur reaches over, mirroring Merlin but only to brush his hair off his forehead, tuck it behind his ear—tracing his cheekbone with a thumb, a brief touch to his bottom lip.  
  
There's an old man reading a newspaper by the window, and the girl behind the counter is cleaning the machines. Arthur leans back in his chair, stomach flu playing up again, and tells Merlin to, "Eat up, curly."  
  
Merlin grins at him, but instead of eating settles for asking Arthur a list of increasingly weirder questions about whether this or that is true about America—about the size of New York and that law, about oranges in bathtubs, where was that supposed to be again—until Arthur stops trying to answer with what he knows and begins making up things, making Merlin laugh, watching the boy walk backward down the street so he can look at Arthur as they talk.  
  
They pass a billboard with a movie posted on the way to the car, and Merlin decides he wants to go the cinema. "Right now?" Arthur asks, laughing, and Merlin asks why not, what other plans do they have, and Arthur has nothing better to say to that. They have no idea where to find a cinema, though, and the navigation system does little to help. So Arthur drives them into the city where they ask around, eventually find an empty looking place where the man in the ticket booth seems to be drowning in his own sweat—face close to a little fan on his desk.  
  
The movie they saw on the poster isn't playing. Their choices dwindle down to an action flick or an animated tale, something Dreamworks and oddly 3D, and while the decision would seem obvious Merlin insists on the latter of the two, stubborn and annoying, playing the birthday card until Arthur relents with a grumble and a light elbow to the side.  
  
It's a kid's movie, early afternoon, and—"There's no one even here!" Arthur accuses, craning his head to look about the empty theatre.  
  
"We're here," Merlin says, vaguely, tugging him back down to sit normally. Arthur turns to reply, still frowning at the empty rows behind them—in front of them—and then stops. Gets at Merlin's intention. Raises his eyebrows.  
  
Merlin smiles, slow, busted, letting his head loll back against the seat.  
  
"No," Arthur says, firm. Merlin's hand is still lightly clinging on to the front of his shirt. On the screen the curtains glide open all the way, the commercials starting to play. The way the lights reflect off Merlin's glasses is familiar now, his eyes visible only for short flashes at a time.  
  
"Nooo," Merlin affects Arthur's intonation, mocking, pulling him closer. He is beautiful like that, the black of his hair looking blue, his long neck and young face. Arthur's heart stops, a pause before it goes on racing, stuttering when Merlin's hand lets go of his shirt—slides up, cups his face.  
  
"This is a kid's movie," Arthur says, quietly. He's turned to Merlin, one arm over the back of his chair, and Merlin is moving closer—pulling him in.  
  
"No one's even here," Merlin whispers, smiling, parroting Arthur. His hand slides into Arthur's hair, and he leans up, lips brushing over Arthur's. Without much thought, Arthur's hand settles half on his hip in reply—heel of his hand on the soft of his belly, over his shirt.  
  
"I think about you," Merlin whispers to his mouth, just as Arthur's lips part. "All the time. Got hard today. During the exam."  
  
Arthur pauses. He closes his eyes, frowning, replying with a heartfelt, " _Jesus,_  Merlin. You can't— say—"  
  
"It's true," Merlin interrupts. "I say it because it's true."  
  
Their foreheads touch. Merlin noses up Arthur's cheek, kisses his upper lip, licks under it. The cinema is cool, the AC soundless under the booming of the speakers, but Arthur feels hot and clammy, a size too big for his own skin. He kisses back, smothering a deep breath into Merlin's mouth, letting their lips cling together for a couple of ups and down before opening up properly—tongues sliding together, the wet sound of it only audible to them, small over the opening credits.  
  
The kiss goes on. Through the first fifteen minutes of the movie, then Arthur moves down a little—brushing his puffy lips over Merlin's jaw, nudging it up with his nose, biting, sucking at his neck while Merlin holds him close by his hair, short, hitching breaths puffing over his temple. He edges his hand under Merlin's shirt, places it where it was before but now over softer skin—feeling the jerking of his muscles when Arthur bites down, the small, involuntary hitching of his hips.  
  
Merlin forces him back up with an impatient tug and a breathy whine, and the kiss picks up where it left—needy and slow, heating up and then slowing down as they keep on, biting, sucking, or sometimes just lips—see how long they can do that, see how long before someone relents with a smile and sucks on the other's lip, nips at their chin, impatient. It's fine, it's perfect until it's not, Merlin groaning and tightening his grip, fisting Arthur's hair. Arthur scratches his nails over Merlin's bellybutton, and something about that makes Merlin lose it a little—try to wriggle up, clamber over his seat and into Arthur's. And for a moment, a second, Arthur has half the mind to let him. But then he checks himself, snaps to it in time to the comic background music of the movie, and stops the boy with a hand to his chest and a—  
  
"Merlin.  _Merlin._ " He pulls back, breathing heavily, and Merlin is staring at him—eyes wide and dark, nostrils flared. He swallows. Sinks back to a sitting position.  
  
Arthur licks his lips and they hurt. Slowly, he retreats his hand, sitting back in his seat. Merlin's chest his heaving, and he's breathing shallowly—glancing to the screen, then to Arthur, then flopping back in his seat, letting his head loll back over the edge of the backrest with an air of desperation.  
  
Arthur looks at him. His dark profile, the bobbing of his adam's apple, his closed eyes behind his glasses. The tiny hairs backlit by the bright screen lights, the curls that always stick to his forehead, messy and swept sideways by an annoyed hand, at one point or another. Arthur closes his eyes, turns to the movie, opens them. Tries to follow the storyline for a minute or two. It's pointless. It's so, so pointless, and he knows it before deciding on it,  _aching_  with it, leaning back and shifting a little—pressing as close as he can to Merlin, whispering, "Stay quiet," to his ear, lips pressed to the shell. Merlin breathes in a long, shuddering breath, and Arthur unbuttons his trousers, pushing the zip down enough so he can slide in a hand under Merlin's briefs.  
  
Arthur palms him, gently, and Merlin shudders—mouth open, jaw slack, not making a sound. He's hard and pulsing in Arthur's hand, the front of Merlin's pants damp against his knuckles. A flash of realisation at how much this boy wants him hits him, clamps at his lungs and he can't pause at that, kissing Merlin's neck and pumping him, once, sliding his hand over the head to get his palm wetter, smoothing the stroke down. Merlin bucks up, a quiet sound in the back of his throat, and Arthur nuzzles behind his ear, tells him,  
  
"Still, now."  
  
He jerks him slow at first, then faster, the slapping sound of skin and wet concentrated and close to the both of them. The movie is gradually leading up to the climax. Arthur looks down to see Merlin's dark cockhead peeking out between the band of his briefs, sees his own hand below the ridge of it, pushing back the foreskin, face hot and neck sweaty.  
  
"Jesus," Merlin whispers, clutching onto the armrests, fucking up into Arthur's hand with small movements of his hips. He looks down, up at the ceiling, licks his lips. "Fuck,  _fuck._ "  
  
Arthur kisses his jaw, open-mouthed and filthy, murmurs a, "Come on, beautiful," to his skin, biting down on an earlobe, and Merlin comes, comes on, comes and sobs, grinding up and twisting to kiss Arthur's mouth. It's short, sloppy and raw, and it makes Arthur want to confess shit—say things he isn't sure are true but wants Merlin to know all the same. Instead they fill the silence with breaths and Merlin's euphoric little exhales of laughter, still reeling, letting Arthur kiss the tip of his nose—push back his hair, button up his trousers.  
  
When the movie ends Arthur is still hard. Merlin wants, but Arthur won't let him, refuses to, says no and  _no, Merlin,_  insisting  _now_  it's inappropriate and that they'll end in jail, somehow. He's sure they will. He’s never felt this criminal before. On the walk back to the car he's still hot in the face and turned on, the back of Merlin's neck a step ahead of him getting to him like nothing else, and on the ride back it doesn't get any better—Merlin sitting in the passenger's seat, reaching over to comb his hand through Arthur's hair, leaving it at his nape, thumb stroking the skin behind his ear.  
  
"You're gonna talk to my mum like that?" Merlin asks, twenty minutes outside of town, quirking a playful smile at him—glancing at Arthur's lap—and Arthur stares ahead at the road, gripping the steering wheel. It takes him a minute before—  
  
_"Fuck."_  
  
And he stops, haphazardly parking along the shoulder of a narrow country road, tense and heart thudding like madness in his head. He lets Merlin climb onto his lap, lets the boy slip a hot hand into his jeans, getting off on the wild inexperience of it—the weight of Merlin, fucking into his mouth with his tongue and jerking him in the cool, tinny air of the car. They leave the engine on, the radio on, and some old rock song comes on—a Queen song, fucked if he knows which one—and he thinks, vaguely, that having sex with Merlin will always feel like this, rock songs in the background and a thick throat. Sweat in the air and a crazy heart, whooshing in his blood, past his ears.  
  
He comes like a rocket, cursing loud and not caring. The feeling is violent and he's saying Merlin, Merlin,  _god, please, Merlin_ , asking for heaven knows what. Merlin is shaking in his lap, braces himself against the backrest with one hand—over Arthur's shoulder—and rubs himself quick and brutal, only a few moments, crying out into Arthur's neck when he finishes, still shaking.  
  
They have parked under a cottonwood tree, and now the window looks somewhat whiter for the layer of fluffs that skids over the surface. On the radio, the news reports little change in temperature, predicting a week of hot weather and sun, with only a light chance of rainfall in the North, and only toward Wednesday.  
  
When they get home, Ms Wyllt has cake and a list of people who'd called to wish Merlin happy birthday, who he needs to call back. The neighbours come over, too, and sitting in the living room they open the presents: a book, a few CDs, Arthur's hilarious dig of a magic set—but  _no, not really_ , and  _here's the real thing_ , which turns out to be a video game. Merlin looks happy, and Arthur wants to always have this. Always be in a place where he can make him happy.  
  
It makes him irrationally sad, at first, and as Merlin keeps on unwrapping the gift Guy had left him, the feeling only grows. He can barely breathe for the weight of it, by the end of the evening, and tries his best to pass it off as something joking when he suggests to go kick some ball out in the park. Merlin frowns at him, sensing something, but says okay, and  _only for a little while, Mum, yeah?_ , hurrying after Arthur when he's already marching out the back door.  
  
The early night is pink, the sun still crawling its way orange and yellow down the horizon, and to the backdrop of that Arthur has Merlin pressed back against a tree—kissing him until he calms down, until the grip around his heart eases, until he can let go, a little, and not feel like he's letting go.  
  
*  
  
School has been out for two weeks when Arthur asks, and Ms Wyllt says—nothing, at first. Pausing in the stirring of her tea, looking down into her cup, and for a wild moment Arthur thinks she knows.  
  
"I suppose, it shouldn't be a . . . " She sighs, looks up—questioning. "I'm sorry, I just don't understand. You  _own_  the place?"  
  
Arthur hurries to explain that, "No!" But—"Not—exactly. It's my sister's. My father, he, ah. Left it to her. When he passed away. It's hers, but it's—ours. We, ah. Used to go there, a lot. In the summer. When we were just kids, really."  
  
Ms Wyllt still surveys him, considering, and he continues. "It was too far from the city for me to live there. Permanently. I mean, as in, permanently this half year." He takes a breath. "I just thought, for this weekend, it'd be nice for him, perhaps? Get out a little. Until he gets the results back, just . . . " He trails off. He has no idea when this conversation has made him this nervous, but his palms are clammy around his mug, his grip tense. "Show him where I grew up, maybe? Before I . . . have to, ah. Go. Back."  
  
She nods. Gives him a slight smile. "All right," she says, tapping her spoon on the edge of the cup—placing it on the table. "Have you talked to Merlin about it yet?"  
  
He thinks, at first, that she's talking about him leaving. Then he realises, flashes back a weak smile. "No," he says. "No, I wanted to ask first. Not get his hopes up, you know?"  
  
Ms Wyllt clears her throat, raises her eyebrows as she looks at the table. "Well," she says, closing her hands around the tea cup. "This is exciting."  
  
*  
  
An hour into the drive, Arthur stops in a narrow shopping street of a small town. He stares ahead for a moment, drumming on the wheel, and Merlin gives him a questioning look—glancing sideways at the street. Arthur bites his lip, bites down to the skin below, baring his teeth in difficulty.  
  
"What?" Merlin asks, light, like maybe he thinks this is going to be funny.  
  
Arthur puffs out the breath he's been holding in a sigh. Tilts his head against the headrest. Blinks up. He lets go of the wheel to scratch his hands through his hair.  
  
"Arthur," Merlin says, the humour lessening. "What?"  
  
Arthur stops his hands. His heart is hammering away, and he can't get around the fact that he's frightened now, as well as thrilled and a bit mad with the idea. He turns to look at Merlin, head still tilted back, and gives a small smile, trying to make himself feel more careless than he is.  
  
Merlin raises his eyebrows, jerks his head a tiny bit as though to show his loss as to Arthur's behaviour.  
  
"Give us a kiss," Arthur says, and though Merlin is somewhat wary, he doesn't say no to that—still at the point where neither of them can imagine ever saying no to that—unclicks his seatbelt and rises up in his seat, some of his weight on his knees as he looms a short distance over Arthur. He kisses him in the way Arthur knows he likes best, controlling depth from above, starting rough and slick and slowing down to lips, pursed and clinging together, his fingers fanned over Arthur's jaw.  
  
Merlin sits back down, red around the mouth and flushed. He looks expectant, waiting for the clue.  
  
"Be right back," Arthur says, and gets out of the car. He fiddles with the keys, puts on his sunglasses, and walks down the street to the chemist. He comes out a small ten minutes later, a paper bag in hand, and ducks into the car with a fuss of movement—chucking the bag in the back seat, starting up the engine, pushing back his sunglasses and pulling at the gears. Merlin watches him, frowning, then turns to the back seat—takes the bag, looks inside.  
  
The car wobbles down the awkwardly paved road. Merlin is bright red where he's sitting, unsure where to look. He scrunches up the bag, and gingerly turns around in his seat—placing the bag on the back seat again.  
  
"We don't have to," Arthur tells the street, right as they exit it, continue to turn at the roundabout. "I'm not saying that we have to. Or should. Or—that you—" He stops himself. Exhales a tight breath. "Look. You shouldn't think that . . . I just mean that it's safer. It's for safety." He glances at Merlin, swallows. "Yeah?"  
  
Merlin nods, looking uneasy. He's still blushing something awful. One hand, Arthur notices, is gripping at his knee. "Yes," he says, voice cracking on that one word, and clears his throat—turns to squint out the window.  
  
Arthur looks at him, to the road, back to Merlin, back to the road. After a minute of that horrible silence, he turns on the radio.  
  
*  
  
When the hilly landscape starts to rise up on either side of the car's path, and the radio occasionally turns static, Merlin takes to breaking the silence with quiet remarks on the scenery. Mostly it's a, "can you imagine living there?" at a deserted looking farmhouse, a, "ha, look at that!" at a goat trying to climb up a high shrubbery.  
  
Arthur quietly hopes for a reaction when they follow the road up an incline and to their right, right behind a row of dry trees, the reed roof of a large country house comes into view. There are a few shrubby trees flanking the red brick walls, and only the top row of neat, white windows is visible. Merlin huffs a laugh under his breath, tapping the window with a knuckle. Arthur silently takes a slow turn up the side path, toward the shallow valley.  
  
Merlin looks at him. Another huffed laugh, louder this time, and, "Yeah. Right."  
  
Arthur just quirks his brows at him, the gravel path crunching under the car's wheels as they sway with the bumps in the road.  
  
"Seriously?" Merlin asks, pitch rising, his amused disbelief turning wide-eyed.  
  
"Seriously." Arthur chances a grin at him, and Merlin barks a surprised laugh in reply—squirming in his seat to undo the belt, lifting up to see the rest of the house.  
  
"Shit," he says. Laughs, turns to Arthur. "What!"  
  
Arthur is smiling as they come to a stop, Merlin already half out the car—skipping a few steps back to take in the front of the house, stepping right into the old flower bed, now just a weedy patch of ground surrounded by a line of bricks.  
  
"Just how bloody rich are you?" Merlin shouts at him from a distance, walking to look around the side of the house.  
  
"I told you," Arthur calls back, taking their baggage from the trunk—shutting the hood. "It's not mine."  
  
"Yeah, but . . . " Merlin comes jogging back. He looks thrilled, properly impressed by it all as he takes his weekend bag from Arthur. "I mean, still, though. If this is your family, then . . . "  
  
"I do alright," Arthur tells him, lightly cuffing him upside down the head as he starts toward the door. "My dad, though."  
  
Merlin looks at him over his shoulder.  
  
"My dad did brilliantly."  
  
Arthur digs into his pocket for the keys, and Merlin waits, leaning back against the doorpost, smiling at him—trying to fight it, too, muscles tight around the corners of his mouth. Arthur can't say why that, of all things, makes him blush a little—ducking his head as he opens the door, watching Merlin hop upright beside him.  
  
He hasn't been here in years. It smells old, like someone else's house, and the colours inside have faded over the years. Carpets and paintings that catch the sunlight, the floor's varnish, the curtains. The basket for the keys is still on a table in the hallway. The kitchen still floods with light at this time in the afternoon. His heart clenches with memories, briefly, and then Merlin storms in with a long and juvenile, " _Whoaaaaaaaa!_ ", dumping his bag at the door and starting to look through every single room. He laughs and shouts comments back at Arthur, runs upstairs and occasionally pops his head over the railing, at the top of the stairwell, telling him something about how many bathrooms there are—how there are two more floors up, and joking, saying that if he doesn't come back in ten minutes, to call the police.  
  
Arthur spends the hour that Merlin is running about taking their clothes out of their bags, still folded, and placing them into the wardrobe of the room he's picked out. It's nice. He needs to change the sheets, too. They're too dusty.  
  
"Merlin," he shouts out the open door, smoothing his hand over a shirt, placing it on a shelf. "Merlin!"  
  
"What!" comes faraway and muffled, from somewhere in the house.  
  
"We need to pop down to the supermarket," he says, loud, grabbing the socks. Putting them in the drawer. "Before it closes."  
  
It's silent for a moment. Then, a while later, Merlin shows up in the doorway, red from exertion and flashing him a quick smile—half in the hallway, leaning in, holding on to the post for support. "What?" he asks, again, breathless.  
  
Arthur looks at him. "We need to go get food," he says.  
  
Merlin pulls himself up, standing evenly now. "Oh," he says. "Okay."  
  
When he passes him on the way out, Arthur ruffles Merlin's hair—tugs him close in the same movement, kisses the top of his head. Merlin huffs, put-upon and happy, shoves Arthur off and jogs ahead—hurrying down the stairs. Arthur follows, playing with his keys as he goes—twirling them into his palm by the ring, letting go. Twirling again, catching. Letting go.  
  
*  
  
Neither gifted cooks, that first night they get frozen pizza—heat it up and eat it in the kitchen, Merlin sitting on the counter, Arthur at the bulk of a wooden kitchen table, watching the BBC's evening programming on the small telly in the cupboard above the stove. Merlin gets a little quiet, after, and Arthur half guesses as to why. The silence makes him nervous too, and when they settle in the den with a mumbled agreement to see if they can find a decent movie in the collection of video tapes left behind from years before, Merlin is antsy and still on his end of the couch. He's nicked one of Arthur's jumpers, the nights in these altitudes cooler than in the city, even in the summer. The sleeves are bunched over his hands, arms curled around a knee, watching the television with a timid air—he’s not looking at Arthur.  
  
It's odd, this. After sneaking around, hiding behind the shed to snog, after venturing out pent up and frustrated to park somewhere deserted, climbing into the back seat—stifling breathy laughs and struggling for space, touching each other, bringing each other off quick and harsh with hands and thighs, now they have all the space in the world and there's still half a couch between them, the noise from the telly sounding over what should be a very awkward silence.  
  
Arthur chews on the inside of his lip. Glances at Merlin. He looks younger than he is, right now, and that sends Arthur's pulse racing, making him feel queasy. He tries to calm it by reaching out, aiming for casual, palming Merlin's neck.  
  
Merlin jerks, instantly, ducking away before realising his reaction. He tries to backtrack, to lean into the touch in a frantic, uneasy way, and Arthur drops his hand, swallows and says, "Look." And, "Forget about it, okay? Please. Just, forget you saw that, yeah? Let's just have a—"  
  
"No! Ugh, it's—" Merlin drops his foot from the couch, slumps into his position a little, head propped against the backrest. "Dunno," he murmurs, chin close to chest. "It's just, you know. I've . . . I've never . . . "  
  
"I know," Arthur says, quickly. "I know you haven't."  
  
Merlin looks at him, brows tilted like he's unsure, a half frown, a kind of puppy dog eyes in his own way and Arthur goes soft inside, achy at the same time. "I know," he says, again, then tugs at Merlin's jumper. "Come here."  
  
Merlin goes, looking small and abashed, and Arthur gathers him up against him, hooks an arm around his waist and manhandles him close like that, leaning somewhat into Arthur's chest, head resting on his shoulder. He smells like Arthur, now, in his clothes, and Arthur feels fiercely possessive for a moment—waiting for the sentiment to ebb as he presses his lips to the line of Merlin's hair, the messy curls of it.  
  
The movie plays on. Arthur can't even place the actors, let alone the plot by now, and at some point—not much later—Merlin laughs, quietly, and turns to bury his face in Arthur's neck, breath hot and tickling to his skin.  
  
"What?" Arthur asks, already amused.  
  
Merlin lifts his face enough to whisper a conspiring, "I haven't been paying attention."  
  
Arthur snorts and Merlin continues with a, "Have fuckall idea what the movie's about."  
  
As a reply Arthur leans down to nip at his cheek, lightly, then reaches for his leg—pulling it over his, turning Merlin around, and Merlin goes easily, shuffling to straddle him, weight on his knees as he lifts over Arthur. The boy likes it like this. Arthur likes knowing that, and fits his hands to his hips, edging below the hem of the jumper.  
  
"Bonjour," Merlin smiles down at him, putting on a rusty imitation of the French he's heard from Guy for ages now. "Comment ca va, Artur?"  
  
"Ca va bien," Arthur says, easily the entirety of all that he remembers from elementary. "Le singe est sur la branche," he adds. "The monkey is in the branch."  
  
Merlin kisses him, hands lightly fisting the front of his shirt, and Arthur laughs into the kiss—gets bitten for it, but not hard, just a scrape of teeth and a tugging at his bottom lip. Merlin pulls back, a bit, and Arthur takes the moment to comb the boy's hair out of his face, run his fingers behind his ear—thumb the lobe below.  
  
"Glad you're here, beautiful."  
  
Merlin looks at him. Cocks his jaw a little. "Do you really think so?"  
  
"Think what?"  
  
"Think what?" Merlin parrots, making his voice quiet and stupid. "You know what."  
  
Arthur breathes out his amusement through his nose. "Look at your little face," he says, leans in to gently butt against Merlin's cheek with his nose, drawling out a close, "So eaaaarnest."  
  
Merlin's answer is to smile and nudge back, tilt his face and lick into Arthur's mouth, kiss him until the joke turns thicker, noisier. Until the funny comments are mostly gone and all that there's left is mostly quiet and needy, hot up their spines and clouding their heads. Merlin grinds his hips down and Arthur clutches at him, gasping, breathing against Merlin's mouth, jaw slack.  
  
By the time the credits are rolling, tape scratchy and occasionally jumping on screen with how old it is, Merlin is lying flat out on the couch—on his back, pants down around his knees, and Arthur between his legs, sucking his cock, fist tight around the base and chin wet with it. He's mostly silent about it, breathing hard through his nose, though the wet noises cannot be helped—whenever he sucks a on the upstroke, accidentally pulls off, Merlin's cock pulsing as it skids over his cheek.  
  
Merlin's clutching on to the couch. He is looking up at the ceiling, eyes rolling back, chest heaving as though in fast forward—quick and shallow and stuttering. His mouth is open, and sometimes he gasps, sometimes he cries out, and when Arthur lets go of his cock, fingers curling lower, palming his sac—he arches, sobs, comes with a soundless grimace and shakes, shakes as Arthur licks at him, licks at his stomach, his hipbones, the soft skin inside his thigh.  
  
"Oh my god," Merlin breathes. "Oh my  _god._ "  
  
Arthur crawls up a bit, takes Merlin's hand from where it's clenched into the leather of the couch—puts it on himself, curving Merlin's hand around the bulge in his jeans. Merlin squeezes, lazily, presses his palm into it, and Arthur grinds his hips into it, frantic before he shudders and comes, face pushed messily against Merlin's sternum—feeling the fluttering heartbeat beneath, the smell of Merlin's sweat through the jumper heavy on Arthur's mind, consuming, good like that.  
  
*  
  
Merlin is sleeping in when Arthur is raiding through the shed in the early morning. It's still chilly out, quiet, and Arthur is in shorts and a sweater, stumbling about trying to get over old, rusty bikes and gardening tools. He pushes aside a long dead lawn mower with his foot, and makes for the cabinet in the back. The football he used to keep there has deflated, and there's a hole in the tennis racket, but the rugby ball is in a fairly good state—although a bit soft, smaller than it used to be. Or maybe Arthur's hands are bigger.  
  
Rugby, Arthur announces, is what they'll be doing that day. Merlin groans his whining disapproval, mostly into his tea, still bleary-eyed and sleepy, and Arthur laughs and insists on how much fun it'll be—like football was fun, remember football? And I'll teach you, alright, it'll be grand, it'll—  
  
"No it won't," Merlin grumbles, shuffling toward the stairs, going to change out of his pyjama bottoms. "It'll be great fun for you, and I'll get hurt, and when I say I told you so you'll tell me to be a better sport. I know how this goes.  _I know._ "  
  
"Just go!" Arthur shouts after him, when Merlin purposefully makes a slow show of it—nearly crawling up the stairs, grunting miserably. "Bloody baby," he adds, under his breath, finishing the last of his coffee. Merlin meets him behind the house after having taken far too long, greeting Arthur by bumping into him, forehead to his shoulder, leaning in with all his weight. He mock sobs, whines about how he doesn't want to, and Arthur snorts—pushes his face away, and starts going through the basic rules.  
  
"Whatever," Merlin says when Arthur asks him if he's got it. "Just give me the bloody ball, then."  
  
And Merlin is like this, Arthur knows now. Much for the dramatics at first, but once you get him as far as doing something he'll get over it, get into it, if only just to prove you wrong—show that even those who hate it can do it, it's that easy. And surely enough, after Arthur tackles him down the first—second, third—time, after he _indeed_  hurts himself but gets gamely angry about it, determined to inflict some kind of pain in return, they've got themselves a game going. The day gets hotter, they get sweatier and worked up, Arthur taking off his sweater and Merlin wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, shouting start positions, grinning, ball under his arm.  
  
Arthur lets him pass, sprints after, wraps his arms around his waist still running. Merlin is tired enough that he can't fight back immediately, laughing a desperate, "No!", trying to maintain his forward momentum but failing. Arthur tackles him down in fighting for the ball, laughing, and just to be annoying, Merlin cries out a, "Never!", throwing the ball over Arthur's head, across the grass at no one. It lands between a few trees, randomly, and Arthur looks from the ball back down at Merlin—breathing hard, feigning an angry stare.  
  
"Yeah," Merlin exhales, chest stuttering with laughter. "That just happened."  
  
Arthur lets himself drop lower, to his elbows, hovering over the boy. "Yeah," he says, and Merlin's smile softens a little, eyes darkening, the corners squinting like amusement in the bright light. Arthur stares down, takes him in, properly, gives their silent back and forth a moment—then shifts his weight to one forearm, slides his free hand to Merlin's chest. Merlin's gaze is clear, his breathing becoming conscientious. Arthur moves his hand down, trails it over his side, his waist, then hip—reaching his thigh, stroking down and at the same movement pushing Merlin's knee sideways, boldly opening Merlin's legs for him, settling between.  
  
Merlin quietly grips at the sides of Arthur's shirt, pulling him nearer. He easily folds his calves around the back of Arthur's thighs, and Arthur's hand slides back up, under his shirt this time—stroking over his ribs, his thrumming heartbeat, his nipples. Merlin rocks up a little, half-hard, and Arthur rocks down in return, rougher, pushing a gasping breath out of both of them.  
  
Merlin tries to lean up, tries for a kiss, but Arthur inches back—just out of reach. When Merlin settles back into the grass, he leans back down, only to retreat when Merlin leans up again. The boy hisses out a sigh, frustrated, and Arthur keeps his hips rocking, a steady pace that makes it that much headier—makes the afternoon that much hotter, right now, in this moment. Merlin arches, exhales an unsteady shudder, tugging at Arthur's shirt, and his glasses fall backwards off his face. Something flares in Arthur's chest at that, toxic and needy, and he picks up his pace—rolls his hips into the cradle of Merlin's, hard and faster, rubbing their cocks together through their shorts.  
  
There's no one around for miles, nothing but an insistent wind and sheep, and there's no one to see them as they scrabble to take off their clothes, get as far as pushing off pants and rucking Merlin's shirt up under his arms—to see Arthur wrap Merlin's legs around his waist, line their cocks and grip the two of them in one hand, fucking into the tight channel of his fist, slightly out of sync with Merlin's thrusts up.  
  
He looks down between them, frowning with concentration, jaw slack and jutting forward. He watches, watches his own cock sliding against Merlin's, angry red and slick with precum, watches the purposeful bucking of their hips—grinds down to press his balls to Merlin's, feels what he sees, feels as Merlin comes, hot and pulsing into Arthur's hand.  
  
Arthur groans, desperate to come himself, looks back up. Merlin is watching him, hazy and eyes a freakish shade of blue, the light hitting them at an odd angle without the glasses—making them brighter, lighter than he's ever seen them before. Arthur lets go of his cock, rests his weight on both his forearms, on either side of Merlin's head—face close, breathing hot against Merlin's mouth as he ruts into the hollow of his hip.  
  
Merlin opens his lips, licks into Arthur's slack mouth, and Arthur comes with a frowning grimace—fingers curling into Merlin's hair, panting around his tongue, a broken sound in the back of his throat.  
  
They both get a sunburn that day. Arthur more so, the back of his thighs an irritated red, a call for much hilarity—if he's to believe Merlin, who laughs and laughs that night in bed, straddling his legs as he rubs something calming to his skin.  
  
"Ass burn," he calls it, inexplicably afflicting an American accent as he drawls it out. "Aaasssss burrrrn."  
  
Arthur snorts, tries to kick him off, but Merlin lifts up—crawls up his back, hands still slick with cream when he places them over Arthur's ribs, lightly biting the side of his neck. Merlin likes to bite. Arthur grumbles, pretends to mind, calls him a bedbug.  
  
Merlin bites between his shoulder blades, smiling, rubbing his erection to the small of Arthur's back. Arthur turns his head where it rests on his arms to watch him do it, lazily gazing over his shoulder. His eyes feel heavy with lust and sleep, and he closes them when Merlin bites at his side—breath catching in his throat, the jolt of teeth unfurling into something hotter when Merlin licks over the ridge of his ribs. Outside it's silent, nothing but the whoosh of wind through the trees and an evening bird, warbling somewhere close by.

 

*

 

The next day they go for a walk. It's all pretty much the same, and while they both realise this should be the kind of thing they'd enjoy—in an elevated, intellectual sort of level—the scenery and the weather and all—it gets pretty old pretty soon, and the heat makes them silly in punchdrunk ways. They happen on a small lake and Merlin decides to take a swim in his underwear, even though the algae has made the surface green and the water is murky brown, the weed wavering beneath the surface. Arthur stands by the waterside, going from snorting to laughing so hard his knees give away and he's on the ground, watching Merlin slip and skip out of the water, crying over how old the water is—clutching on to his crotch with a quick litany of, "My balls, my balls, my balls!"  
  
They share a smoke under the shadow of a tree, have a lightsaber duel with dried branches that crumble pretty quickly, Arthur's giving way first—resulting in him giving in, dropping to his knees with his hands in the air, and Merlin pretending to slash him across the chest with a, "Vshoooz!"  
  
He falls back, faking a noisy death, and Merlin runs about shouting victory. When they get back, they decide on a barbeque for the night, and Arthur sets to putting together an improvised construction made of bricks and an oven grill. Merlin doesn't help, takes a shower instead, and Arthur gives him shit for it—jokingly, going on loudly about how, "Sure, yeah, leave me to do all the work—sure, go have your shower.  _Go_ , I won't stop you, go, what do I even ca—" the rest of it muffled when Merlin jogs back from the house to half jump him, laughing and kissing and ending it with a bite and a request to shut up. He's going to have a shower now, he has algae in his pants.  
  
When Arthur finishes, has put all the meat out to defrost and has the paper bags of coals ready, he goes inside to yell at Merlin to come down—finds him in the kitchen, in shorts and one of Arthur's shirts, wet hair and flushed, folding a slice of bread around a piece of cheese. Arthur comes up from behind, says hello by sliding his arms around Merlin's waist, curling around him, burying his face in his neck. He smells like soap and bread, and leans into the embrace, tilting his head back to rest on Arthur's shoulder.  
  
"It's Sunday, isn't it," Merlin says, taking a bite of his bread. Arthur hums a correct, slightly swaying them from side to side.  
  
"What did you used to do," is Merlin's next question, a quiet moment later. "Back home. On a Sunday."  
  
Arthur considers, props his chin up on Merlin's shoulder. "Recover from a wild night out. Clubs, drugs. Going bananas." He adds a comical whisper of, "B-A-N-A-N-A-S."  
  
Merlin snorts, turns the little it takes to look at Arthur and whisper back, "You are such a loser."  
  
Arthur pulls back. "Excuse me?"  
  
Merlin doesn't reply, just grins around his bread, eyebrows lifting up in challenge.  
  
"You know what," Arthur says, lets go of Merlin, doesn't finish the sentence. He starts looking around the kitchen for something, and Merlin watches him, eventually giving in and asking,  
  
"What?"  
  
"Ha!" Arthur finds the small radio in the back of a cupboard, sets it on the counter, turns it on. It's mostly white noise, and he scans for a station—anything would do—and eventually finds something static-y and muffled, playing the bottom list of the current top-forty. "Okay," he says, and walks out of the kitchen. He waits around the wall, tells Merlin that, "Pretend you're at a bar!", and gives it another moment before sauntering back in, making a show of leaning against the doorway with a seductive little nod.  
  
Merlin bursts out laughing.   
  
"Mate." Arthur pushes off the doorway, not amused. "You're ruining it."  
  
Merlin guffaws, tries to stifle it, says, "Okay, okay," and puts on a serious face. Then—"Wait," finishes the last of his bread, chews quickly, and through a mouthful adds another, "Okay. Go. I'm good."  
  
Arthur drums on the doorpost, a jittery little tune before disappearing behind it. He leans back against the wall, waits, then slinks back into the kitchen—nodding his head to the vague music, scanning the room as though looking for someone, appraising the people present. Merlin is with his back to the counter, elbows propped up on the surface, looking the other way.  
  
"Hey," Arthur says, sliding up next to him. Head still bobbing to the music.  
  
Merlin glances at him, briefly. "Hey," he says, sounding disinterested, looking away again.  
  
"Soooo . . . " Arthur looks him down. "Nice legs."  
  
Merlin turns to him, slowly. He's fighting a smile, rather painfully, chokes out a wavering, "Thanks."  
  
"Fancy a drink?"  
  
"Sure," he says, and Arthur reaches for the cupboard above them, takes out two glasses. Opens the tap, fills the glasses with water, turns it off with a flourish of a bartender.  
  
"Here." He hands Merlin the glass.  
  
"Cheers," Merlin says, takes a sip, snorts into his glass. Arthur doesn't drop the act, leering over the rim of the glass, sipping at it—then puts it back on the counter. Takes a step back, holds out his hand, says,  
  
"Dance?"  
  
Merlin looks at him, unimpressed. He huffs, almost a laugh. "Seriously?"  
  
Arthur keeps his hand outstretched, starting to move to the music, smiling. Merlin still isn't going for it, shaking his head and saying no, like it's ridiculous, like he won't even consider, so Arthur sighs and slips out of role, shoulders dropping as he asks the boy to please, humour him, just for a second. Merlin puts down his glass, calls him a loser again, and takes his hand. Arthur pulls him in, giving victorious hiss of  _yesss_ , and Merlin lets himself be manhandled close with a huff—wrapping his arms around Arthur's neck, head swaying limply when Arthur turns them about the spot.  
  
"Come on," Arthur encourages, hands linked at the small of Merlin's back—jostling him a little. "Put your back into it, kid."  
  
Instead, though, Merlin sighs—slows them down to a quiet pace, rests his cheek against Arthur's collar and breathes into his neck, grip tightening. Arthur gradually notes the change for what it is, and doesn't press it beyond that. He softens, humour giving way to something quieter, and settles into the hold. The song changes, pop changing into a steady beat, and Merlin starts moving to the rhythm—distracted, almost, lazily rolling his hips against Arthur's. In reply, Arthur leans in to brush his lips to the base of his neck—kisses the pulse point, and finds himself wondering at how fast it's thudding, at the quick  _padum padum padum_  buzzing under the boy's skin.  
  
"Merlin?" he says, quietly, and Merlin tilts his head to brush his nose to Arthur's cheekbone—to kiss him, and there's something odd about it, but he won't let Arthur pull back, clutching at his hair and keeping him close when he tries. "Merlin," he says to his mouth, frowning, and in reply Merlin grabs his hand—still on his back—and guides it under his shirt, momentarily letting up on sucking Arthur's lip into his mouth.  
  
His hand is shaking over Arthur's, slightly, and Arthur is staring at his mouth—mind starting to race, heartbeat picking up—as he pushes it down, past the band of his shorts, over the swell of his ass. His skin is hot, probably still from the shower but also smooth, taut in a way that makes Arthur's throat clench—makes his tongue thick in his mouth. He swallows. Merlin exhales, hot and nervous, and guides two of Arthur's fingers deeper, down his crack, and lets him feel.  
  
He's damp. He's damp and somewhat loose, and the heat of it—god,  _god._  Arthur closes his eyes, feels his skin close tighter around himself—the air turn heavier, pushing at his temples. "Jesus," he whispers, running a finger around Merlin's hole, briefly, feeling him react—breath stuttering against Arthur's mouth. "What did you do?"  
  
"I—" the word catches in his throat, and Arthur can feel him swallow, too, neck working close to Arthur's. "I wanted to—be . . . " he trails off, murmuring, and Arthur can't stop touching him, running his finger back and forth, over, pressing just a—  
  
"To—to be clean," Merlin breathes, squirming, moving into the touch. He hides his face in Arthur's shoulder, and he can feel the heat—feel how much the boy is blushing, opens his eyes to see it bloom all the way down his neck. Arthur presses his mouth to the red skin, frantic, pressing kisses to his nape and his shoulder and the endearment is on his lips before he can help it, calling Merlin, "Baby," and, "Merlin, baby, what've you—"  
  
"Let's go upstairs," Merlin says, words pressed to Arthur's neck—the corner of his glasses digging into his shoulder, familiar. "Please, can we—please go upstairs."  
  
"Shit." Arthur wants to be able to say more, wants to clear his mind for a moment—can't even do that, can't even stop tracing his lips over Merlin's neck, just to feel the heat of his skin. The tip of his finger is inside him, and Merlin is rocking onto it, panting.  
  
" _Arthur._ "  
  
"Yes. Yeah." He pauses. Pulls back. "Okay. Alright."  
  
As he steps away, hands holding Merlin by his hips, Merlin looks up at him. He's wrecked. Eyes blown, wide and there's anxiousness there, definite fright, but also lust, dark and intent, and god knows it's not easy to pull away, to lick his lips and say, "Go upstairs. I'll—I'll be up in a minute, okay?"  
  
If anything, this seems to make Merlin even more nervous, and Arthur is quick to add a, "I promise. Just a minute. I'll just put the meat back inside, alright?" He brushes his knuckles to the line of Merlin's cheek. "Sixty seconds. I'll be up."  
  
"Yeah." Merlin nods. He looks small. "Alright."  
  
In the end, Arthur spends less time bringing in the meat, more time splashing water on his face, then staring up the stairwell—frazzled and uncertain, running a hand over his face, through his hair, turning around—starting toward the kitchen—then stopping, turning back, staring at the stairs again. He remembers the time he fell down those, and they'd thought he broke his leg. He didn't, but it hurt a lot, swelled up ugly and mottled, and he wasn't to walk for a week. Of course, he did. Of course, it hurt even more, then.  
  
It takes him over ten minutes to get himself up those stairs.  
  
Merlin is half under the sheets, sitting up. Maybe only his shirt if off, maybe he's completely naked, elbows resting on his pulled up knees, over the white fabric of the coverlet. He looks more sober than he did before, still frightened though, still uncertain. He's fiddling with the sheet, looks up at Arthur as he says,  
  
"That was longer than a minute."  
  
Arthur notices the condoms on the nightstand. The lube. Merlin has put them there, has placed them strategically—no, fuck,  _aesthetically_ —the packets overlapping evenly, parallel to the tube. It's  _ridiculous._  Arthur  _aches._  
  
"I know," he says, softly, and walks toward the bed—taking off his shirt, hopping out of his sweats as he goes, pulling down his boxers. Merlin watches him, the upset clench of his jaw letting up, eyes fixed on Arthur's chest, his belly, lower. They haven't been naked like this in front of each other before. All they've seen were flashes, bits and shadowed glances, and when Arthur gets under the sheets too—Merlin scooting back, nervously—he holds the fabric up, staring down.  
  
It's still light out, the sun angling in low from the east, filtering through the sheet—making the small tent of a space they've made for themselves a pocket of orange light. Merlin is a stretch of skin, bones and limbs like puberty but also him, so much like him, freckled arms and thighs and a trail of hair down his belly. The protruding bones of his hips. He has the body of someone who might one day be a swimmer, or a tennis player or a biker. A piano player.  
  
It takes Arthur by surprise, still, how much he wants him. How low and deep the need originates. He slides up to Merlin's side, places a hand on his stomach. Merlin hesitates at first, then—slowly—mirrors the movement, reaches to trace the lines of Arthur's chest, feeling out the shape of his muscles.  
  
"Nervous?" Arthur asks.  
  
Merlin pauses. He drops his hand, head on the pillow as he looks up at Arthur. "A bit."  
  
Arthur goes for a rush of honesty. "Me too."  
  
"I know you, though," Merlin says, rolls to his side. "Right?" Arthur's hand is on his hip now, and so he does the same—placing his hand on Arthur's hip. "I mean, nothing to be scared of, right? Cuz I know you. Right?"  
  
"Yeah," Arthur says, on the pillow next to him. He palms Merlin's back, thumb stroking down his spine. "Yes."  
  
They kiss, or Arthur kisses him and Merlin lets him, testing it out like this—on a bed, lying down, naked and close, waiting for the mist of anxiety to give way to the arousal that is right below the surface, keeping them there, tense and wound tight. The reassuring, dry press of lips opens up with the slick sound of tongues sliding together, familiar and exciting, the intimacy feeling new—at least for Arthur, it does. For Merlin it must be new. For Merlin all of this is new.  
  
He lifts up a bit, the boy, just that much—leaning on his elbow—changing the angle, licking deeper into Arthur's mouth and Arthur groans into the kiss, hand slipping down to cup Merlin's ass. Merlin rolls his hips, shallow and quick, and Arthur groans again—higher now, pitched and unsteady. He's usually not that vocal, mindful of people hearing, of anyone hearing or making fun, but it gets to him, this, something about it  _gets_  to him and he pushes closer—slides a thigh between Merlin's legs. The kiss goes slack for a heartbeat, Merlin breathing into his mouth, and Arthur tracing his fingers over the seam of his cheeks—then in, feeling the way he did before, stroking over Merlin's hole. Merlin bucks, rutting against Arthur's thigh, and Arthur's fingers slip lower, press against the skin behind his balls.  
  
Merlin tries to curse, comes as far as, "Shi—" before the word catches in his throat, tone high and breathy, head tilting down, breaking the kiss. His forehead rests to Arthur's lips now, and Arthur mouths down to the frown between his brows, making his glasses slip off the bridge of his nose when he nudges his face this way and that, kisses his eyelids, his cheekbones.  
  
When Arthur takes them off, leans over the mattress to put them on the nightstand, he comes back with a handful. Merlin starts shaking again, hides his face in Arthur's neck, and Arthur—in turn—goes as slow as he possibly can, does all he knows he should do, even though that's not at all that much. This particular kind of touching, in this way, it's new to him, too.  
  
One slicked finger, is how he starts, in and out and not too deep, with Merlin draped over him and his other hand stroking down the back of his leg, up over the swell of his ass. For a long time it's just that, Arthur fingering him shallowly and Merlin panting into his neck, sometimes tilting up to kiss until he can't hold himself up anymore, elbows buckling, settling back onto Arthur's shoulder.  
  
The second finger has Arthur going cross-eyed, he's so aroused. He closes his eyes against it, and then all there is is Merlin's weight straddling his thigh, splayed over his chest, fucking back onto his fingers. Arthur nips at his ear, kisses the soft skin behind, and hooks his fingers deeper, goes faster, and Merlin makes a choked, wet noise, muffled to Arthur's collar bone. His cock twitches against Arthur's hip.  
  
"Arthur," he breathes, a soft whine—pressing closer, grinding down, then moving back onto Arthur's fingers with a jerky movement—unsure what he wants more. _"Arthur,_  I'm—fuck, fuck, I'm gonna—"  
  
"Yes," Arthur tells him, encourages him with a hand below the fold of his ass—slides his thigh up and down, rubbing along Merlin's erection, adding the tip of a third finger. "S'fine, baby," he says, thickly, as Merlin's movements become frantic. "That's good. Yeah, like—yes, fuck, keep on—"  
  
Merlin thrusts down, rolling his hips back with a continuous, mad rhythm, bracing himself on Arthur's chest with two hands—face pinched with slack concentration, mouth open, panting, nails digging into Arthur's skin as he clenches around his fingers and comes over the both of them, grimacing, riding Arthur's fingers—riding it out, not stopping right away, movements slowing down with little shakes until he can't anymore, giving a last little hitch of his hips, a quiet groan.   
  
He slumps against Arthur's chest. He's heavy and sweaty and breathing like he can't get in enough air—the kind of exertion where you can feel the heartbeat in the skin, see it thrumming. Arthur gently flips them over, lays the boy down on his back—lets him catch his breath, slips down to kiss his knees, the inside of his thighs, right over the hollow of his belly button. He waits as long as he feels he can before starting to lick, tracing a wet stripe down his stomach tasting of sweat and sex—mouthing at Merlin's spent cock, sucking kisses to the base until Merlin can't take it anymore, too sensitive and getting hard again, the painful kind of arousal, and he tugs Arthur up by his hair.  
  
Arthur goes, smiling, leaning down for a kiss that Merlin refuses with a tired huff of a laugh, turning his head and saying—slurring, more than anything, ensuring Arthur that, "Not with that mouth."  
  
"What?" Arthur laughs, a breath. "It's your mess, kid."  
  
Merlin still arching away, mouth shut tight as Arthur goes after him, trying to get that kiss—jokingly, making a point of getting Merlin to face him—pinning his arms over his head, mouthing at his lips while Merlin grunts his distaste, until he opens up with a chuckle, a quiet, " _disgusting,_ " but smiling into the kiss all the same, biting at Arthur's lips when he retreats.  
  
Arthur beams down at him. He swoops low for brief instances, swallow-like, nipping at Merlin's jaw, his shoulder, flattening his tongue over his nipple—making Merlin squirm and laugh, breathless. It's playful and sometimes a fleeing darker shade of emotion, with Arthur's erection sliding over Merlin's leg and Merlin propping his thigh up a little—pressing into the touch, watching Arthur's expression falter, breath pushed out of his lungs with a rush. It's playful, and then it's not—a flick of a switch in the middle of a kiss, lust spiking up as Arthur goes from lazily cupping Merlin's sac further back, tracing a circle around his hole, and Merlin thrusts up—hard by now, cock messily sliding alongside Arthur's.  
  
"Oh god," Arthur exhales, a hot breath to the dip above Merlin's lip—rutting back against him, pushing in a finger, fighting for balance as he scrambles for the lube again, hidden somewhere in the sheets. As gradual and slow and it's been so far, it only speeds up from there—movements blurring together, what came first, later, whether it was Merlin's fist tight around his cock or Arthur sucking him off, fingering him at a matching pace, or the fevered struggle for the condom, opening the pack—half laughing, not for humour but for the sheer anxiety of the moment, the both of them out of breath.  
  
When Arthur's inside him, that first moment—that initial forward motion—Merlin tenses up, clutches at his shoulders and cries out, it's hurting, tells him to stop, and Arthur pulls back, heart high in his throat with how scared he is, flushed and apologising, incoherent, ready to call it a day, thinking nothing could be great if it hurts that bad. But Merlin doesn't want to quit, calms down sooner than Arthur does, wants to try again—differently, this time, manoeuvres Arthur over him as he turns onto his belly, kissing him slow and open over his shoulder, grinds his ass against Arthur's crotch until Arthur has to still him with a hand to his hip, breathing hard into his shoulder as he slowly, slowly guides his cock in, blood rushing past his ears.  
  
They take it easy. Where Merlin doesn't tell him to stop this time, he isn't enjoying much at first either—grimacing into the sheets, grunting quietly as Arthur drapes over his back, all the way in. He's so tight around him, clamping down in spasms, Arthur needs to plead him to relax, to calm down, to—"Ease up," which he murmurs headily, words pressed to the sweaty nape of his neck. "Come on. Ease up for me, baby."  
  
" _You_  fucken ease up," Merlin bites back, propped up on his forearms, head hanging low between his shoulders. He lets out a laugh, breathy, parrots back: " _baby._ "  
  
Arthur muffles his nervous laugh into Merlin's neck, scrapes his teeth to the knob at the top of his spine, and feels as Merlin calms down, does ease up around him. It feels good, so good, has Arthur smothering a groan to Merlin's skin—hips hitching, involuntary, and Merlin gasps under him. It's a good gasp. It's a  _good_  gasp.  
  
"Yeah," Arthur says, pulls back a bit—thrusts in, and the replying sound is throatier now, louder. He does it again, deeper, slower, and Merlin pushes back into it, sweat collecting at the dip of his spine, and the next time Arthur fucks into him his support buckles, his face pushed into the sheets. Arthur goes shaky at the sight, leans over to keep close, hand braced next to Merlin's head. The roll of his hips slows down, snug to Merlin's ass, fucking him deep and tight, keeping it up like that until Merlin reaches back for his thigh, fucks back to bring him off the rhythm, get him to go faster.  
  
"Harder?" Arthur asks, his voice scratchy, low, and Merlin gives him a look over his shoulder—a dark, wrecked look, and Arthur has to briefly close his eyes, breathe in more, before peeling off Merlin's back, kneeling behind him, gripping him by his hips and slamming in.  
  
Merlin sobs, groans a broken word that sounds like  _yes_ , back hollowing and curving up with every give and take. They fuck, and fuck, and Arthur doesn't have the mind to think about it—has to have Merlin grab his hand, guide it to his cock, pumping him roughly until he comes with a cry, clamping down around Arthur, and Arthur—so close, so  _close_ —fucks him through it like a madman, following quick behind, face pressed to the valley between Merlin's shoulder blades.  
  
It takes forever before he can move again. Even longer before he can roll out of bed, find something to clean the both of them off with—getting sidetracked when Merlin starts mouthing along the line of his brow, lazily, whispering something Arthur has half the mind to pretend not to hear, replying only by wiping a slow circle to his belly, over the curve of his hip.  
  
They don't get the barbeque going until nine. It's still light out, getting darker by the minute, and they sit close to the grill—on the grass, Merlin between Arthur's legs, leaning back against his chest, Arthur curled around him, quiet. Merlin says,  
  
"I wish we didn't have to go back tomorrow."  
  
Arthur thinks about it, lets the comment hang, then—  
  
  
"We don't have to."  
  
Merlin turns to look at him, slowly.  
  
"You could call your mum," Arthur continues. "Not like you've school anymore. Or anything. We could—stay a couple more days." A pause. "We could do that."  
  
Merlin stares at him. "Really?"  
  
"Call your mum right now," he says, pulling back a bit to dig inside his jeans pocket for his phone, and Merlin stares some more, face folding open to a grin. Arthur glances at him, says nothing, dials the number for him. Hands him the phone.  
  
"Thanks," Merlin says, quietly, eyes still on Arthur when he holds it to his ear, starts the conversation with a, "Hey, mum."  
  
*   
  
It's just a few more days, really. A small week that feels like even less--the Monday blending into the Tuesday, and what did they do on what day, that time with the—remind me?--the kind that in retrospect might as well have been years, for how well it is remembered. Vivid, the memory of it, snatches of moments like waking up too hot and still tired, unable to sleep for the heat of the afternoon, and feeling Merlin shift at the foot end of the bed--lazily blinking down to see the boy cross-legged behind Arthur’s laptop, earbuds in, listening to music, pretending to drum along. Then edging closer, crowding behind the boy, propping his chin on his shoulder--distractedly watching the screen, smelling sleep on the back of Merlin’s neck. The music sounding distant and watery from the headset, and Arthur pulling out the cord, and Merlin who kept on drumming along to a steady beat--grinning sideways as Arthur slid his hand down his arms, palmed his wrists and said,  
  
“Like this.”   
  
He’d crossed Merlin’s hands, poising them over imaginary drums. The band told them, scratchily, to  _float on, already,_  and  _alright, already_  and Merlin laughed as he failed to keep to the rhythm, asked Arthur if he’d played the drums or something. Back in the day, Arthur had said, and settled his hands over the warm skin of Merlin’s belly—fingers tracing the slight trail of hair down, thumbing his navel.  
  
A morning having their tea out on the front step, Arthur hunched over and Merlin next to him, leaning back on his elbows, squinting away from the sun and the way it bleaches everything an off shade of bright. An afternoon driving down to the nearby town, having a shop keeper recognise Arthur as the small kid who’d walked around with a cast for a summer some odd twenty years back. A day with two hours watching a movie, a shower, another shower, a little food and a lot bed, a playful Merlin straddling him—pretending to pin down Arthur’s wrists as he puts on some kind of American accent, tells him that—  
  
“You’re stuck, baby.”  
  
Arthur laughs, loudly, head thrown back in the pillows, because Merlin just can’t stop making fun of that baby thing and the joke isn’t getting old yet, asking Arthur to hand him the remote, baby, and what the time is, baby, what they’re having for dinner, baby, and Arthur always replies with a straight face and a here you go, baby doll, it’s three fifteen, sugar, and pizza—again.  _Sorry,_  baby boy.  
  
The phone goes and Arthur tries to flip them over to get to the nightstand, but Merlin wrestles back and scrabbles for the phone at the same time, snatching it before Arthur can—head stuck under Arthur’s arm—answering with a, “Talk to me, baby,” not even checking who it is. Arthur makes a noise, rolling onto his back, covering his face with his hands—listening to Merlin laugh and say, yeah, hold on, and press the phone to the side of Arthur’s head. Arthur takes it over with a gruff, “Hello?”, easily lifting up an arm to let Merlin settle against him. And Merlin does, chin prepped on Arthur’s chest, watching his face as he says—  
  
“Yes—yeah, that—yes. That was Merlin. Sure. Hm? Yes. Marge’s, for just a week, though. I’m—what? Oh. Yes, not sure, but . . . well.” A pause. “Uh-huh.”   
  
Arthur looks down at Merlin, smiles, absently stroking a hand up his spine.  
  
“He’s alright, yeah. It is. Okay. Ok—okay, yes. That’s good. Yes. Well then I’ll—what? Oh, right, tell him I—well. You know. Alright, I will. Yes. Bye. B—yes, bye.”  
  
He rings off, tosses the phone into the sheets. Merlin wants to know who she was, and Arthur tells him that he could’ve checked before answering, and thanks a lot, _you little menace_ , but Merlin looks a bit worried for a moment so Arthur just tugs at his hair and hisses at him, comically disapproving, saying that that was—  
  
“Gwen.” Then, “My ex. Gwen.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No,” Arthur palms Merlin’s neck, looks up at the ceiling. “Yeah, ‘course really.”  
  
“Oh,” Merlin says, dropping his head—cheek to Arthur’s chest. “Um. Ha. Whoops.”  
  
Arthur snorts, threads his fingers through Merlin’s hair, and lets the silence sink for a moment. But then Merlin wants to know what she’d said, asks so quietly, and Arthur tells him that she wanted to know how he was doing, because she worries. What did you tell her, Merlin asks. Arthur looks down at the mess of his hair, the vague profile he can make out from this angle, and gently tugs at an earlobe.  
  
“Baby,” he says, stretching out the word and smiling, making Merlin look up, slowly.  
  
“You heard my part of the conversation,” Arthur tells him, aiming a little to be annoying, but Merlin can only exhale a little laugh in reply to that, pushing himself closer—hovering near Arthur’s mouth. He starts kissing him, slow and wet and pulling back whenever Arthur wants more, stopping whenever Arthur licks over his bottom lip, but eventually giving in with a smile—deepening it, sliding his tongue along Arthur’s on a breath, moaning into his mouth and then abruptly pulling away, sitting up. Arthur is confused, and Merlin chirps a happy, “Well!” making as though to get out of bed.  
  
Arthur laughs as he wrestles him back into the mattress before he can even shuffle away, calling him a little shit, even as he settles between Merlin’s open legs—as he whispers it, again, faces close, brushes their noses together. His chest is tight with the next kiss, with the hot slide of bodies that follows, and though he laughs when Merlin mockingly moans out a breathy ‘baby!’ as Arthur starts sucking him off, he has to swallow against some feeling—keeping his eyes closed as he nuzzles up the soft of Merlin’s belly. Merlin’s hands are in his hair, scratching his scalp, fisting at the base of his neck. Arthur turns to kiss the crook of his elbow, throat working as he swallows again. The humour ebbs away a bit, and Merlin’s breath catches, his cock wetly brushing against Arthur’s neck.  
  
That night Arthur stays up in the kitchen to reply to some emails he’s been pretending haven’t been waiting for him. It’s rumbling a little outside, some wind and a distant storm, and when a gust of air does one of the windows to open with a whoosh and a clatter, throwing over a few glasses that were on the counter to dry, Arthur nearly jumps out of his skin. He decides to call it a day, then, and makes his way upstairs with his heart still hammering away—giving himself a moment to huff a self-deprecating laugh, shake his head before walking into the bedroom.  
  
Merlin is asleep. On his stomach, naked, head turned away. The sight clenches at Arthur’s chest, like it sometimes does, like it sometimes makes him worry quite a lot. He’s only nineteen, he thinks, a little desperately, undressing with one eye on the bed. Only nineteen. Barely nineteen. Without meaning to, Arthur wonders how Merlin will come to remember this. How old he will make him in his mind, what responsibility he will assign him in his memory—how well he will be able to recall Arthur’s face. A moment later he tells himself to cut it the fuck out, to just stop, and crawls into bed still a bit shaky and upset. Sleep feels miles away, and he misses Merlin, somehow. He’s right there, he knows. It’s pathetic, a little, he knows that too. Can’t help it very much, though, as unwelcome as it is, and trying for distraction he shuffles closer to the boy—slowly drapes over him, presses his face to skin. Merlin is sweaty and tries to shift away in his sleep, uneasy. Arthur doesn’t let up, kissing down his spine, open mouthed and purposeful. Merlin squirms, gradually waking up with a murmur of a complaint, of, “ _Arthur._ ”  
  
Arthur sucks a mark to his side, bites at the bone on the back of his hip until Merlin blinks down at him, blearily, then licks a thick strip over the small of his back. It’s salt and sweat, soft hairs and Merlin tries to ask him what he’s doing with as little articulation as he can manage.  
  
“Can’t sleep,” Arthur whispers in return, and kisses the seam of his ass, licks down the length of it. Merlin stutters out a surprised laugh of a breath, tries to move away, but when Arthur holds him in place, pulls the cheeks apart with a gentle thumb, licks deeper—then Merlin’s quiet exhale turns nervous, and he’s a little more awake, trying to turn around and mumbling that no, Arthur, you—  
  
“—shouldn’t—there—“  
  
“Why?” Arthur asks, voice low, lips moving against the swell of Merlin’s ass.  
  
“It’s not—“ Merlin starts, but it catches in his throat. “I haven’t—“  
  
“It’s fine,” Arthur tells him, vague with the haze of arousal. “You’re fine.”  
  
“Ar—“ Merlin’s reply gets lost in the thickness of his tongue, still sleepy but turned on, and all that remains is a sharp breath and a weak sound when Arthur nips, sucks at the skin next to his hole, then licks over it, again and again, letting the tip drag and catch on his way up. Merlin, half twisted up before—almost leaning on his elbows—falls back the rest of the way, his support giving way. He hides his face in the crook of an arm, and even in the dark the flush all the way down the back of his neck is visible. Arthur wants more of that, and makes it wetter, licking up a stripe to his tailbone. The muscles of Merlin’s thighs twitch and his hips shift, he’s trying to rub against the sheets and when he glances over his shoulder—just for a flash—his face is blotchy with embarrassment and arousal, expression slack, and it makes something wild and possessive spike up from the pit of Arthur’s stomach. Feeling hot and thick in his mind, Arthur manages an arm under Merlin’s stomach—wrapping it around his hips, hoisting him up halfway to his knees, other hand holding him open and sucking, licking, then pushing in—getting off on Merlin’s heat, his broken cries and the hapless way in which he rocks back, small hitches, involuntary and needy.  
  
Arthur eats him out as hard and deep as he can go, tongue hurting, his face a mess as Merlin eventually forgets to be embarrassed and fucks back with quiet  _ah, ah, ah_ s, one hand reaching back to spread himself for Arthur. There’s something violent about it, about the pace Arthur sets in, the hold he has on Merlin’s hips—holding him up, face in his ass as Merlin’s face is smothered in the pillows, hair sticking to his forehead and he’s twisting, unable to keep still, and then—then he’s sobbing. He’s never done that before, never been that desperate under Arthur’s touch and Arthur’s need for him flares hot and ugly, and how helpless he feels in the face of this lust angers him as much as it makes him ache, and he moans into Merlin’s skin—adds a finger, feels what he’s doing to this boy, and Merlin croaks out his name, and please,  _please, Arthur, I can’t—_  
  
Arthur slackens his grip on his hip, lowers his hand, and even though the angle is awkward and all he can do is squeeze Merlin’s cock—rub his thumb over the slick head—he licks and pushes in, fucks his ass for a moment longer and then Merlin’s sobbing stops—hitches, and then he’s crying out, almost a shout, coming around Arthur’s tongue and over his hand and shaking, soon slipping down heavily, collapsing into the sheets. He’s heaving, half into a pillow, unmoving.  
  
Slowly climbing over him, settling along his back, Arthur finds he’s shaking too. His face hurts and he’s not sure what’s wrong with him, why he’s being like this when he hides in the soft crook of Merlin’s shoulder, and silently brings himself off by slipping his cock along the hot, wet seam of Merlin’s ass, and when he comes it’s just on the right side of painful, choking out the first syllables of Merlin’s name into the base of his neck.  
  
And the first thing he hears after that, after they’ve lied there, catching their breaths and feeling the rush buzz through and slowly out of their systems, is a close but muffled, “Oh my god.”  
  
He lifts his head the tiny bit he can manage to see Merlin hiding his face in his hands, a deep blush spreading from his ears down his back.  
  
“What?” Arthur says, hoarse. His eyes feel heavy.  
  
“Oh my god,” Merlin says, again, into his hands.  
  
“Merlin?” Arthur puts a hand over his side, maybe a little worried, and in reply Merlin mumbles a frantic sounding,  
  
“I can’t believe you did that.”  
  
Arthur collapses back onto him. He laughs, a breathy relief, says, “Good, though.”  
  
Merlin makes a miserable sound. Arthur kisses him behind the ear, where the line of his hair is darker with sweat, curls clinging to his skin.  
  
“Ugh,” Merlin says, freeing his hands to fold half the pillow over the side of his head. “I won’t be able to look at you,” he complains, desperate. He breathes, shoulders moving under Arthur, then adds a definite, “Ever.”  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur replies, tired, closing his eyes. “That’ll work out.”  
  
Merlin doesn’t reply, and they stay like that for a while. Breathing, Arthur falling asleep, until—  
  
“Okay.” Merlin starts wriggling, trying to push Arthur off him. “You’re too hot. Really—that’s—ugh. Arthur!”  
  
Arthur rolls off, shifting, finding a cooler spot on the bed and stretching out over it. He feels boneless, and perfect, and can’t recall any turmoil from before. He’s on the verge of sleep again when Merlin shuffles over, settles near by, not quite touching, but close enough so his breath tickles his shoulder.  
  
“What about my face?” Arthur asks, slurring, and Merlin grunts. Says,  
  
“Bed’s fucken wet.”  
  
Arthur’s responding sigh of a laugh comes belated, he can’t process the reply at normal speed, and the last he remembers after that is a touch to his hip—a hand curling over it, staying there, and a murmured good night, followed by the distant notion that nothing should ever change, that someone really ought to hold on to this—somehow.  
  
*  
  
On the last night, when they’re out for a walk about the area—in shorts and jerseys, Merlin mostly talking and walking backwards, two steps ahead—the boy asks Arthur about the drumming, wants to know when and where he learned it, clearly set to make fun of whatever the answer is. Arthur can’t give him anything but the most predictable answer, that he was in a band in uni, a band made up of four guys he’d met in that one year he’d got up the nerve to take an extra-curricular class.  
  
“What were you called?” Merlin asks, laughing, and Arthur glares for a moment.  
  
“You little shit,” he starts off by saying. Then, “The good sons, alright? Oh, that’s—“ he adds, incredulous, when Merlin cackles before the words are even out—clearly on purpose. It’s not even that funny. It’s a valid name.  _It’s not even that—_  
  
“It’d be cool though,” Merlin says, a moment later, turning with a jaunty little step, marching up a slight incline. “Drums and stuff. To like, play it and be all, augh,” –he pulls his chin back in a nod, as though to a beat, making a vague drumming movement with his hands and— “Yeah, all right.”   
  
“You could learn it,” Arthur tells him. “If you want to learn it. I think you’d be alright, actually. If you try.”  
  
“Yeah, right.” Merlin snorts, stops the drumming, shoves his hands back into his pockets. Arthur catches up with him, and Merlin gives him a look, smiles and says, “Maybe you could teach me.”  
  
Arthur means to say yes, immediately, but is stopped by the idea of when and where—and has to swallow the answer, and in not knowing what else to say—says nothing.  
  
“Or . . . “ Merlin stretches it out into a question, finishes with, “Not?”  
  
“I, um.” Arthur looks down, at the greyish stones and grass. The crickets are impossibly loud at night. “Can’t.”  
  
“Have you been making the whole drumming thing up, then?” Merlin jokes, brushing their shoulders together. “Were you actually the cow bell bloke in the back, Arthur?”  
  
“Funny,” Arthur says, trying to smile. “Can’t really teach you all that well from another country, though, can I.” He intended to make it lighter, to say it in a way that’d be funny somehow. It doesn’t work, at all, and now all it is is just a little sad. It takes him a heartbeat to realise Merlin has stopped walking, is standing still a few steps behind.  
  
“You’re going back?” he asks over a thick stretch of silence, of a warbling bird and the neverending buzz of insects, the sound of it blanketing the landscape in theme with the dusk.  
  
Arthur shrugs a little. Hapless. He likes to think he’s so old around this boy, but the fact of the matter is—he’s only barely an adult, often doesn’t feel like one at all. Often feels as though he’s pretending, acting out the things he sees other people do.  
  
“I was only gonna be here for six months,” he says, sounding small. “You knew that. I—I’ve said that I—“  
  
“Yeah but you never mentioned it since—“ it comes out in a rush before Merlin’s voice breaks, and the rest of it gets caught in his throat. He swallows. Arthur blinks down at his feet. “When are you going back, then?” Merlin asks, eventually, a little croaky now.  
  
Arthur shrugs, again, starts saying something with an uncertain sound of a mumble, like he hasn’t thought it through yet but Merlin isn’t buying it, cuts him off with a,  
  
“When? When are you going?”  
  
“Dunno, exactly,” Arthur says. Merlin stares at him, and Arthur can’t even bring himself to look back when he adds a reluctant, “Maybe two weeks.”  
  
There’s a pause, then Merlin’s quiet, “Oh.” After that the boy can’t seem to quite look at Arthur anymore, either. He’s glancing at the house, blinking rapidly, then swallows, tilts his head up—blinking at the sky. Then he turns around. He doesn’t walk away, though it seems like he might. In all probability he doesn’t want Arthur to see his face.  
  
“Merlin,” he tries, takes half a step toward him—stops.  
  
“I’m not—“ Merlin starts, thickly, but cuts himself off. He turns his head, almost looking back, but all Arthur can see is a shallow profile. “I know,” he says. “Alright? I _know._ ” He swallows. “It just sucks. So I’m just . . . I . . . “  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur agrees, quietly. It’s as close as he can come to comfort. “I’m not very happy about it either.”  
  
Merlin breathes something that could be a laugh—but maybe it’s meaner than that, or maybe a sigh. Arthur just doesn’t know. He can’t think of anything to do that won’t make it worse, so he does little but stand, stare at the line of Merlin’s shoulders until he starts back toward the house, silent. Arthur gives him a head start, then follows, his gut in his shoes and a nausea at the back of his throat. He doesn’t want to, but automatically recalls getting here a week ago, and how excited and nervous they were. How Merlin had run about, looking through the rooms. He wants it back, desperately. It makes him even sicker.  
  
The next day, in the car on the way back home, Merlin sulks. He’s slumped in his seat, leaning against the window, rocking along with the car’s movement—dully staring at the blurry passing of trees. Arthur tries to initiate conversation, but it’s not happening. He’s left to answer his own questions, trying to make a bit of a joke of Merlin’s complete silence, but that gets barely any reaction at all—just a slow sideways glance and a brief clenching of jaw.  
  
Before they get into town, at the traffic lights, Arthur leans over to kiss Merlin’s neck—affectionate, a last one before they have to keep to themselves. Merlin, in the true spirit of a teenager, shifts and wipes at his neck with his sleeve. Arthur feels the first pang of annoyance, of hurt, of a self-satisfied— _see, this is why. He’s immature. It’d never work, it’s better it’s ending, it shouldn’t have ever—_  
  
“Is he alright?” Ms Wyllt asks when Merlin stomps up to his room with nary a hello, leaving Arthur with the bags in the hallway. She’s looking from where her son’s disappeared to Arthur, back at the stairs, an absent hand to her breastbone.  
  
“Tired,” Arthur says, as though that would easily explain anything. “Just very, very tired.”  
  
*  
  
He’s not sure what he expected, that night. Whether he thought that--that maybe Merlin would be the reckless youth he’s always been, that he would sneak upstairs and slip into his bed even though Arthur would say no. Whether he actually considered the possibility that Merlin wouldn’t look him up, wouldn’t try to get near the moment the house went quiet--his mother asleep, the quiet buzz of the piping the only sound--isn’t sure at all he considered much altogether beyond the vague notion that enough’s been enough, and that now was the time to pull back. It had been alright so far, for as far a relationship like this could be alright, but Merlin, he figured, not without a tiny swell of satisfaction, was in a bit too deep.  
  
Between the two of them, Arthur figured, he would have an easier time parting ways.  
  
And it’s not like he hasn’t been through it before--doesn’t know what to expect of it. Because he has, been through breakups and dying friendships, has been left and then left himself, and at the same time he also remembers his old life back at his old apartment. Remembers it in the summer, reading the paper out on the balcony or the few parties he’d had, the way the space was filled with people, talking and drinking, making a drunken mess of it. Recalls indulgent conversations with people who didn’t have children, who weren’t children themselves, who knew about issues he cared about and what doing his job  _meant_  and--  
  
Arthur sighs. Kicks off the sheets. The attic window catches the sun for the bigger part of the day, and if no one is there to close the curtains, by nightfall the room is caging in a tropical heat unlike anywhere else in the house. Arthur is hot and uncomfortable, and he just can’t fall asleep. He thinks real hard, tries to miss his old apartment more than he misses Merlin’s sleepy presence at this very moment, and uneasily notes that he can’t. He rolls onto his stomach, mumbles a tired, “Fuck”, into his pillow, and stops thinking about any of it altogether.  
  
It works for about a minute. A minute and a half, and he’s huffing out a tight, annoyed breath, kicking at the bunched sheets at the foot of the bed for good measure as he clambers his way out of bed, sitting on the edge for a moment and asking himself if—“really, Arthur? Really? Are you really going to be that--?”  
  
With a nervous hand scratching through his hair and a furtive glance down the hallway, he pads down the stairs, feeling silly, a bit angry that he can’t seem to help himself. Ms Wyllt has left the entry hall light on, and some of it shines over the stairs--casting faded shadows along the floor, the orange light catching the angle of the open bathroom door.  
  
Arthur leans against Merlin’s doorframe. He presses closer, tries to listen for voices--movement, anything. The silence is the same as the rest of the house. He gives the door a soft, half-hearted knock--just his knuckle, tapping against the wood and then he pushes it open the next moment, whispering a quiet, “Merlin?” into the room, as though he’s there with a query.  
  
There’s no immediate answer, no rustling sheets, and for a moment Arthur thinks the boy is asleep. He peers in, one hand still on the handle, and in the dark sees Merlin staring back--in his bed, the sheets pulled up to his waist, his arms folded under his head, pillowing over the pillow. On the other side of the wall, one of the neighbours flushes, the sound muffled and faraway.  
  
With glasses off, Merlin’s eyes look huge. He takes Arthur in, and the flickering movement of his eyes gleams, catches what little light there is.  
  
“You asleep?” Arthur asks, uselessly.  
  
“No,” Merlin whispers back. Pauses. “Mum’s right down the hall, Arthur, what--”  
  
“Couldn’t sleep.” He strokes a hand up and down the edge of the door. “It’s like the bloody tropics up there. Don’t think it’s ever been this hot.”  
  
Merlin says nothing to that. He looks away for a moment, up at the ceiling. His chest rising and falling in time to his breaths.  
  
Arthur thinks he should probably go back to his room now. Intellectually, he acknowledges that this is crossing some kind of line, but in practice he just lingers, heavy against the doorframe, says, “I don’t remember it ever being that hot, I don’t--”  
  
“Mum’s  _right there_ , Arthur,” Merlin cuts him off. He’s serious.  
  
“I know,” Arthur whispers back quickly, irked. He leans back to look down the hallway. It’s empty still, and he leans into the room again, one hand on the frame as adds a softer, “I  _know._ ”  
  
Merlin sighs. Arthur can see the clench of his jaw. In the tense silence that follows, he wonders when the boy had gotten this old. When he looks back at Arthur, exasperated, he seems so much more Arthur’s senior, breathing out a small, “Come on, then,” and shifting over in the small bed, making room.  
  
Arthur closes the door behind him, carefully, and walks toward the bed as quietly as he can. He’s half ashamed, half relieved, losing his cool and only barely planning on how to get it back--getting into bed alongside Merlin, on his side, shifting close. Merlin exhales, breath hot over Arthur’s forehead, and Arthur fits his nose to the dip of his throat, a hand under his shirt, tracing up his spine, knees knocking then slotting together. Merlin’s clammy palm settles on the side of Arthur’s neck.  
  
“You can’t stay,” Merlin tells him.  
  
“I know,” Arthur says, words pressed to the jut of his collarbone.  
  
“Mum’ll have a fit.”  
  
“I’ll go back before she wakes up.”  
  
“You have to.”  
  
“Merlin,” Arthur says, tilts up a little--trying to look at Merlin. Merlin responds slowly, thumb moving to the line of Arthur’s jaw, tilting his face down, his frown a little wary when he looks at Arthur.  
  
Arthur kisses him. Lips, a shared breath, then coaxes his mouth open--jaw wider, kissing him proper and Merlin shudders, fingers sliding into Arthur’s hair, clenching. Arthur mumbles a breathy, “Missed you, baby,” into his mouth, and Merlin smiles, although reluctantly, tells him he’s full of it and kisses him more, a wet tongue licking under his upper lip, sucking it into his mouth.  
  
Merlin rolls Arthur onto his back, and the bed creaks. They both freeze, and in waiting for a replying sound from one of the rooms--straining to hear if they’ve woken anyone up--Merlin slumps a little, rests his head on Arthur’s chest. Arthur cards his fingers through the boy’s mess of a hair, getting caught in the curls.  
  
The house is, as ever, silent. The branches are soft in brushing against the window tonight, the leaves moving over the pane with a whoosh and no one wakes up. No one storms into the room in a flurry, no one finds out, no one gets angry or aggressive or tells them to stop, instantly, to get their hands off each other--or anything else they‘ve been half waiting for all this time. So little people even care, it would seem, and for a secret as big as it feels--it can, at times, appear dreadfully small.  
  
*  
  
A week before Arthur leaves, someone new moves into Guy’s old room. An Austrian contractor who was supposed to oversee a few projects in the neighbourhood, and ended up needing a place to stay for about three to four months. He is a nice enough man, shows them pictures of his family and two dogs--fine bred, apparently, competed for a title last year in some German dog show--Arthur can do nothing to appear any more interested than a thin smile and a vacant nod. Merlin manages even less than that, pushing his food about his plate at dinner, and--on being asked by his mother to reply to something the man had asked--pushes away from the table and walks out of the kitchen, just like that. There’s momentary apprehension all around, and then Arthur hurries to say he’ll go after him--had a suspicion what it’s about, that Merlin had been upset about school,  _something._  
  
But Merlin doesn’t really want to talk to Arthur, either, angry and flushed with it when Arthur stops him halfway up the stairs to the attic. There’s a short tussle, Arthur trying to get his arms around him and Merlin pushing him away, but then that fight is lost and when Merlin slumps against him--miserably pressing his forehead to Arthur’s, elevated from a stair higher--Arthur is reminded of another time chasing Merlin up the stairs during dinner, not that long ago, and wonders what has changed, exactly, and how much.  
  
That night, before Merlin goes to sleep, they hang around in Arthur’s room. Arthur had given him a hushed, sloppy blowjob, resting his head on Merlin’s thigh--lazily gazing up at the boy. Merlin had kept his eyes shut throughout, and afterwards looked even more miserable than before. And now, sharing a cigarette by the window, Arthur--at a slight loss by this point--gives in a little and says that he’ll visit, sometimes. That Merlin will have his number, that he can call whenever--really.  
  
Merlin gives a sad smile and says,  
  
“Yeah, right.”  
  
*

His last visit to the office saddens him more than he thought it would. He hadn’t made an awful lot of friends, wasn’t ever in a position where that would be appropriate. He got as far as Nina, and that, too, was by pure coincidence. He’d slept with her, what seemed like lifetimes ago, and more than anything her disappointment in how he’d dealt with him led her to treat him more delicately. Some might call it pity. Arthur called it nothing, and quietly thought to himself that relationships come in all forms, and that he could do worse than pity--easily.  
  
He has papers in his drawers to take back. A rolled up Beatles poster he brought in one day in a lark, jokingly challenging himself, wanting to see if he’d do it. He didn’t, in the end, and is now distantly relieved for it. It would’ve been silly. He would’ve felt silly.  
  
The one poor looking plant he’s had for the last few months, a wilted looking thing in a plastic pot--left on an old saucer from the canteen--he holds in his hand on the way out. He pauses at the rubbish bin, hovering the pot over it, and looks up at Nina--who’s watching from a little while off, leaning back against her desk--asks,  
  
“Want it?”  
  
She considers it. Shrugs. Says,  
  
“Alright.” And holds out her hand for the plant. He hands it over with a few steps toward the desk, a short nod and a smile. Almost a smile.  
  
“Take care now, Nin,” he tells her, the both of them holding the plant.  
  
“Will do, boss,” she says, and he lets go of the plant. “You too, eh? And tell your little brother Nina said hi. Tell him--” She catches herself, remembering. Giving him a playful smile. “What happened, by the way? You never said, did you. With the girl he fancied. That he told her about and all.”  
  
“Oh. Yeah. No, it’s--” Arthur nods, briefly looking away, as though distracted when he adds, “They’re going out, I suppose. It’s, um. It’s quite adorable, really, him bringing her over for dinner, getting embarrassed over everything. Locking themselves up in his room. His mother insisting the door stay open. You know.” He purses his lips together in a wry line of a smile, nodding again. Self explanatory. “That teenage stuff.”  
  
“Ah. Yes.” She looks at the plant, like it’s meaningful, then back up at him. When she adds a sober, “Remember it all too well, that,” Arthur can’t help but see how old she’s making the both of them out to be--late twenties, good jobs and consistent difficulties in love.  
  
He wants to exclude himself from that. Wants to say something that would clearly not include him in her pretentiously profound little statement.  
  
He can’t think of anything, though, mouth open and words caught in his throat, and he just sighs--out through his nose, looking away. Irritated. This is what he looks like when he has to be somewhere on time.  
  
“Well,” he says, and makes the next nod a parting one.  
  
*  
  
Merlin stays up in his room. The stupid child, true to his petulant age, stays in his room and would not come out--and the last Arthur had seen of him was after breakfast, when  
Arthur went up to check if everything was packed and Merlin passed him on the landing, on his way to the bathroom.  
  
“Hey,” Arthur had said, stopping, but Merlin made to slip by without a word. He didn’t want that, though, not today and grabbed Merlin’s arm, gently tugging him back.  
  
“Are you coming down?” Arthur asks after a moment of silence, Merlin weakly pulling his arm out of Arthur’s grip. “The taxi’s coming in an hour or so.”  
  
Merlin had shrugged, then. Arthur, sad and exasperated with how juvenile this felt, wanting a different kind of goodbye--wanted the boy to at least pretend it was okay in the end, that this was a bit sad but, well, inevitable, and What are you gonna do about it, Such is life, We’ll all get over this and This isn’t the ending, really, it’s just the--  
  
Arthur scowled, hissed through his nose. “Fine,” he’d said. “Whatever.”  
  
He hadn’t meant to react in kind. Hadn’t meant to copy Merlin’s impossible attitude in his anger, or to just jog up the stairs without looking back, playing up the annoyance, the coldness--hadn’t meant at all. He did, though, and it felt good for a short while, a pleasant little thud of satisfaction when Merlin’s door banged closed downstairs.  
  
But the feeling sank quickly, fizzled at the bottom of his gut, disappeared into anxiety and unhappiness. And now, standing outside the house, watching the taxi cab pull up to the house Arthur half hopes Merlin will stay in his room, thinks it’ll be easier and not as fussy, but when he and Ms Wyllt start heaving his suitcases down the pathway toward the street his heart starts to thud, dully, and he gets a rising sense of what kind of goodbye this might turn out to be.  
  
He squints up against the sun, looking at where he knows Merlin’s window is--partly obscured by the tree. The little bit glass that is visible reflects the leaves, the top of the roof of the house opposite.  
  
“I told him the taxi was here,” Ms Wyllt tells him, looking up at the same window. “He’s really upset.” She glances at him. “He looks up to you an awful lot. It’s just hard for him. He doesn’t mean . . . “  
  
She trails off. Arthur nods. Goes back into the house to get the last suitcase and his coat, his briefbag. It’s too hot for the coat, which he slings over his arm, then dumps in the back seat. Over it goes the bag. The Austrian contractor, whose name Arthur keeps forgetting, stands by the end of the pathway--awkwardly nodding his goodbye, giving a one-handed wave. Arthur waves back, weakly, over Ms Wyllt’s shoulder as she hugs him--pulls back red-eyed but smiling, telling him that,  
  
“Well.” And, “Take care, now,” patting his arm, then stepping back.  
  
Arthur lingers, hesitates. Waits a little longer. He doesn’t want this to be the last day. Taking a breath, he puts one hand on the car roof, half turning his body away--still waiting, though. Expecting something more to happen.  
  
A few cars pass down the road. Someone from further up the street shouts a reply as to what they want for dinner, that they’d take the fish over the chicken, and a breeze that doesn’t reach them ruffles the branches of a few trees. Makes the canopy rustle. Ms Wyllt squints at him, mouth twisted.  
  
Arthur gets into the car. He shuts the door and hooks his elbow over the open window, looking up her.  
  
"Tell him--” he starts, but his throat is thick. “That I . . . "  
  
Ms Wyllt smiles at him, weakly, and waits for him to finish. He finds that he doesn’t know how.  
  
“Just that he can call,” Arthur adds instead, a little lamely, glancing up at the obscured bedroom window. He is far too aware that this will be the last time. With a croaky request to go, Arthur turns to the driver, pulling in his elbow--awkward, feeling too big for his seat as he secures his belt. He stares at the windshield as they start moving, the car pulling up to the road. Ms Wyllt has one hand up for a parting wave, the other fisted at her mouth. She’s swallowing down the same emotion as Arthur.  
  
He looks at her through the side mirror. Gives a small wave in reply. There is no one else standing in the driveway, just her, getting smaller and smaller the farther down the street they drive--until the next turn, and then there’s no one at all. Just the clipped ticking of the car’s signing its direction, the dry whoosh of air-conditioning. An old rock ballad on the radio, sound turned down, almost all the way.  
  
*  
  
In a bathroom stall at the airport, head pressed against the wall and breathing hard, Arthur doesn’t know what he’s doing.  
  
“Arthur?”  
  
He squints his eyes shut at how familiar her voice sounds. How different it is to him now. His hand shakes as he holds his phone up to his ear.  
  
“Arthur?” she tries, again, a little wary now, and he’s trying to keep his breath from catching in his throat--keep the wet, scratchy quality out of his voice when he replies with a quiet,  
  
“It’s Arthur.”  
  
“Yeah, I--know,” Gwen says, and there’s a short, unsure pause. “Are you alright? You sound--”  
  
He grimaces, the next breath escaping wrecked and hissed, and he’s making sure it isn’t a sob and that his face doesn’t get wet, rubbing at it with the hem of his shirt, digging the cloth into his eyes, but the effort is small and Gwen’s momentary silence is obvious enough on its own. He knows what he sounds like. He knows what he can’t make it sound like.  
  
“Arthur?” she asks, and it’s so quiet, so much like a whisper that when he replies, a hoarse little question that he will wish he could take back the moment it’s out, he makes it a whisper of his own, a rush of breath of--  
  
“Do you think I was in love, Gwen?”  
  
She doesn’t reply. She probably isn’t even sure what he’s talking about, what era and which love he’s thinking of, and Arthur takes the silence to let himself run full of shame at his words. Outside, a few men walk into the bathroom talking about something they vehemently agree about, and Arthur finds himself wanting for one of those voices to be Merlin’s--aching for it, desperately, for it to be expected and easy to run into the boy at any moment, just a normal part of his day.  
  
But it isn’t. Not here, not today, and Merlin won’t be around. He won’t be anywhere Arthur will be. That weird little glitch in his life is now over. Forgotten soon enough, he's certain. One day he will have to wreck his mind trying to remember the boy's name, only recalling the odd link to an Arthurian legend. What was it, again? Some variation on a knight, perhaps, or some other strange . . . some . . .   
  
The hand that Arthur used to press his shirt into his eyes slips into his hair. He clutches at it, fisting his hand at the back of his head, and tries to breathe through the burn of his heart--waiting for it to lessen, tip over the worst like most jabs of pain do.  
  
It doesn’t, really. Not yet. The men in the loo are washing their hands. They have stopped agreeing quite so loudly, having said it most, now talking intermittently. They leave, and Arthur hasn’t moved. Gwen is saying his name, softly questioning for a lack of anything else to say.  
  
“I’m here,” he says, croakily. He’s still waiting for the feeling to pass. “I’m . . . “  
  
*  
  
Home, when he gets there, is the last place he wants to be. In a bone-weary state, bags on the floor by his door, coat draped but slipping off his arm, he fumbles with the keys and tries to think of a place he would want to be. His eyes burn with how tired he is, and he can't think of anywhere that would make him happy right now.   
  
An old lady is shuffling down the hallway, slightly bent in her pace, down toward the elevator. She nods on passing him, wishes him a good day. To him it's still night, can barely keep his eyes open as he glances at her over his shoulder—gives a shaky smile, grumbles something in return.   
  
He more or less collapses into the apartment, letting the bags tumble over the doorway, rattling the keys as he tosses them on the little desk by the entrance. He can't be bothered much right now, kicks the bags far enough so he can shut the door behind him and leaves his coat on the floor. The place is dark, the kind of dark that still feels like daytime—like someone closed all the curtains, even through you can still see how bright it is outside through the fabric. Can still see the shadows of birds whirling by the building windows. He passes through the kitchen, gets himself a glass of water, drinks half of it then gives the rest to the dead plant by the sink.   
  
It's really dead, though. He flicks a leaf. It crumbles a little.   
  
"Home," he says to no one, then, quiet and hoarse. Immediately follows it with a breathy little laugh. He takes his phone out of his pocket, checks it—nothing, a message telling him he's switched providers, crossed a border—and starts unbuttoning his shirt on the way to his bedroom.   
  
The bed is cold and smells like the detergent he used in college. He doesn't want to lie in it. For a moment he considers getting out of there, just going away, getting a cab and heading downtown, finding a bar somewhere and being around people. Meeting new people. Drinking.   
  
But the thought of that leaves him feeling a ill, too. Mostly he wishes he had better curtains.   
  
He checks his phone again, grits his teeth at his own impulse, then puts it on the bedside table. It's empty apart from that, he hadn't even left an alarm clock on leaving all those months ago, and Arthur closes his eyes at that, hating the stereotype he's making. Jetlag and a heartache, curled up in a bedroom that looks like somebody's guestroom. He used to have pictures in college, he remembers. Used to have fucking posters. At least a handful of them. Where did he put those? In the back of some closet, he recalls, someone's closet—his or Marge's or—or his dad's, back when—when—  
  
It's something past four in the morning when he wakes up, sweaty and unable to remember some uneasy dream, convinced his phone is ringing. He grabs for it, pushing a button, lighting up the screen—casting the room into a blueish shade. His heart is racing but no one's calling, no one has called since the last time he checked. He's confused at first, going through missed calls, and then wakes up a little more. Calms down. Flops back into the pillows, tosses the phone to the table.   
  
He stares up. Then sideways, at the phone. He could call Ms Wyllt. Tell her he landed.   
  
He almost grabs it again, a movement aborted halfway, arm sinking back over the sheets.   
  
Angry, he kicks away the blanket. It's too bloody hot.   
  
*   
  
His office smells sweet and clean, the air a constant breeze wheezing out of the AC. The silence is filled by the soft patter of heels and loafers on carpeted floors, murmured phone calls, the distanced whoosh and pling of a copying machine. It's a very uncomplicated place to be, and he stays there for as long as he can. Having dinner out of a box by the light of his computer, shoes kicked off, radio on in the background. He turns it off every now and then, and spends the few quiet minutes sipping his beer. There are some songs he just can't listen to yet.   
  
But he's doing fine. It's two weeks back and he hasn't even had a chance to really unpack, so much work, so many people to see—it's ridiculous, really, how he'd let himself forget the pace of adult life, how exciting it all was—and it's off to Sydney next month, for he doesn't know how long yet, and he's doing fine, really. He's doing great. Even met up with some friends he hadn't spoken to since graduation, and oh how he'd meant to, for years he'd meant to and even though most of them were busy—apologised over the fuzzy connection from across the country—they all said, they all told him how great it was. How well he was doing. All of them, every single one, or at least—at least the two he managed to track down, but they said it still. Little Ben B, now Benjamin Baruchai (legal consultant)—once a skinny boy from Michigan who used to wash his dishes in pile in the shower—sat across him at a bar that had looked bigger on the outside and said—  
  
"You look like you're doing great, Arthur. Sure. Yes, that's—that's indeed a lot of money. Sure. No, I—well. Somewhere around that figure, yes, but I've really got to—what? No. Obviously. Don't always need that to be happy, good on you man, really, but um. It's been great, but I've really got to—me? Well I—I'm. I'm engaged, Arthur. Ah, yeah, ah . . . . Next month. Oh, well, I just figured you'd—you know. Haven't heard from you in years and, figured, you're off living the wild life somewhere in, you know, but . . . Arthur. I've got to go, okay? Okay? And go easy on the drink, okay? No, it's, I just think maybe you've had enough. Okay? Well. Take care man. I'll—I'll see you around. Take care. Good seeing you again. Go home, Arthur. Take care."   
  
*   
  
He sublets an apartment ten minutes from his office, a twenty minute walk from the docks. In another lifetime he would've thought it beautiful, the artfully mismatched furniture and glass wind chimes by the kitchen windows, making the room into a kaleidoscope during the early morning sunrise. He'd have brought home someone he'd liked and sat with them on the counter in certain states of undress, smoking by the open window, eating with small bites and saying anything he can think of that might sound impressive, attractive. He'd make himself into a person he doesn't like at all, mentioning poets and that one Russian lit class he took back in early two-thousand, things he doesn't care about at all but hopes the almost-naked girl does, hopes that she would like that about him in return. Hopes that it would get her even more naked.   
  
Another lifetime, ten or so years ago, but not these days. These days his head hurts a lot and he spends a little longer in front of the mirror in the mornings, midway through a shave, wondering at the skin under his chin—touching it, carefully, asking himself whether the slight sagging has always been this prominent. He's got three bottles of wine in his fridge at all occasions, goes through them at a constant but brisk pace, keeps the vodka in the freezer for special occasions.   
  
His neighbour keeps his television on the other side Arthur's bedroom wall, falls asleep with the thing turned on, and for the first two months in Australia Arthur spends long nights staring at the ceiling—drifting in and out of consciousness to the fuzzy, droning voices of the shopping network through plaster and bricks.   
  
His new office is bigger than the one back in the States, oval windows and half-moons and iron, high ceilings and open spaces in a building that used to be a gallery, modern, and he hates it with the same passion he used to pretend to like it. His secretary is a young man whose name—Nathan—it takes him a small eternity to commit to memory. Nathan is twenty-three and in his rolled up sleeves and converse under his dress pants, has an instant and violent crush on Arthur. On his more drunken evenings Arthur entertains the thought of indulging the boy, of looking down at him on his knees—of running his hands through Nathan's soft hair while he'd slowly pump into his mouth, shallow and good, letting him have it. He clearly wants it, and it could happen—so easily. A long night at the office. The dimmed lights. The place emptying out, quieting down, the traffic reflecting on the windows from the far street.   
  
But Arthur doesn't. He watches the boy out of the corner of his eye sometimes, how he flushes and swallows, handing Arthur papers, and each flash of half-assed want is followed by a sickly feeling, a memory that should be distant but isn't. He tries to recall what had compelled him to Nina, how he'd made his move, exactly, and how he hadn't felt like shit just thinking about it. He can't, not really, and has Nathan transferred on account of sloppy filing.   
  
A week before he heads back to the States, Marge comes to visit. His sister looks older at first, and he finds himself glancing sideways at her as they walk down the boulevard. He wonders how she feels about the skin under her chin. If she's noticed some sagging, too. Her hair is as dark as it's ever been. He wonders whether she's found some grey yet. But where he's always needed a while to get used to her every time they meet, she feels she doesn't have the time to wait for him to get over his awkwardness and points out every silence, every lull in the conversation, making bold decisions for the both of them and saying, "Come along, darling. We mustn't be dull," setting them on a quest for liquor through the small kiosk shops placed along the shore. She succeeds in the end, as Marge is wont to do, and though it's a chilly day the sun is out and bright and they get a little burnt and drunk on the beach—she in pencil skirt and heels, he in his suit, sitting on his jacket, passing the bottle back and forth.   
  
When it gets dark and the wine is gone, they start a wobbly trek to Marge's hotel, reluctantly sobering up as they go. He bids her goodnight and she kisses him on the cheek, smooths down his hair with a fond smile and kisses him again, lingering, then quietly asks him when he's planning on being happy. He holds her arm, like she's drunker than she is, and tells her that he hasn't picked a date yet. He aims for light sarcasm, but it comes out tight and self-conscious. He smiles, wanly, and leaves her in the light of the hotel, filtering through the revolving doors and onto the sidewalk.   
  
He runs into Nathan on the way back. 'Runs in', as in makes a detour, passes by the bar not far from his office where he knows most of the young staff goes, where he—though young—has been avoiding, and perhaps it's a Friday night and perhaps it's not that strange that Nathan should be there, but it's a coincidence, still, or so Arthur tells the boy—shouting it over the music, over the smoke, close and staring at his mouth through half-lidded eyes. Leaning against the bar. His beer is sticking to its coaster.   
  
Nathan is a good fuck. Arthur doesn't give any of it much thought, but it feels good and that's not wrong, is it? None of it is wrong, they're not doing anything behind anyone's back, Nathan isn't even his employee anymore and they're both adults, both more than capable to make this choice without needing to justify it in any way.  
  
Arthur remembers twenty-three. Went to Greece for a while, to wind down, he'd called it, whereas his father went for the slightly more aggressive wording of Disgusting Affair, an exclamation that had been shouted from his study, had echoed down the hall. Arthur spent long days on the sunny deck of a friend’s sailboat, days that flowed into one another unnoticed—marked mainly by good bottles of wine, good fucks, good conversations on subjects he knew fuckall about. He was very self-satisfied. He also thought he invented youth. He pitied anyone over the age of thirty.  
  
He wonders now if Nathan pities him.   
  
"I'm going back in a week," he tells the boy, after, in bed. Nathan is half sitting up, smoking, flicking his ashes in a glass of water next to the bed.   
  
"Oh," is the answer that comes, a beat later, then, "D'you have more smokes?"  
  
"Yeah. In the drawer."   
  
Nathan twists to the side, reaching down. "Which—"  
  
"Second from the bottom."  
  
He rummages for a while, his back flexing as he moves, and he's rather broad. Freckled. Arthur feels ill again. He's often wondered what Gwen felt like, when she first started with Lance, back when they were together. Whether the guilt was sometimes strong enough to make her stop halfway in, say no, dress again and head home. Whether it ever made her feel sick to her stomach.   
  
"Hah," Nathan says around the last of his cigarette, sitting back up. He's pulling his fingers together, sliding a bracelet down his wrist. "What's this then?" He tosses the sealed pack of cigarettes on the sheets, drowns the smoking butt in the water with a hiss, inspecting the leather band with amusement. "Funny," he says, smiling at Arthur. "Who did this then?"   
  
"No one."  
  
"D'you do it then? That's pr—"  
  
"Take it off."  
  
"I just never took you for a—"  
  
"Take it  _off._  That's—" He reaches over, heart thudding madly, scrabbling at the bracelet while a bewildered Nathan tells him that—  
  
"Alright, alright! I'm taking it off. Jesus, I'm already fucking taking it off!"  
  
Arthur is leaning over him, over the sheets, frantic in his movements as he puts the bracelet back in the drawer—shuts it with a loud sound. Nathan is leaning back, stiff, hands up in half defeat. Face twisted as though to say he's weirded out. Arthur takes his momentum of swinging back to his side of the bed to get up, pushing back the sheets, legs over the edge. Walking to the bathroom he gives a curt, "Get out," doesn't glance back all the way but sideways, at the wall, accompanying the words with only a profile. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Nathan sit up proper.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Get out," he repeats, and closes the door behind him. For a moment, he tries to keep up the pretence of having walked in there with a purpose, He takes his toothbrush, looks at it. It's not hiding in his bathroom if he's brushing his teeth. He hears shuffling outside the door, muttering. His hand starts to shake, a little at first, getting worse, and he drops the toothbrush with a clatter. Washes his face. He's thirty and he's hiding in his own bathroom. He's cold, and naked, and wraps a towel around his waist in an attempt to make it better. At least in theory.   
  
And so Arthur is cowering and in contrast Nathan goes right up to the door, bangs on it a few times, shouts, "You're fucking insane!" when Arthur won't even answer, let alone open it, and then leaves—a lot of sound and fuss all at once, a door banging shut, before everything goes quiet. The light bulb buzzes silently, a low sound, and the ventilation hums in the corner below the ceiling, futile.  
  
On the flight back, Marge, a few hours in and having run out of things to say, asks,   
  
"Where's this come from?"   
  
Arthur doesn't look up from his paper. "A shop," he tells her, dryly enunciating.  
  
"A shop," she repeats, mocking. Touches his wrist, pulls up the bracelet. Plays with it, bored.   
  
"Must you?" He looks up now. "Really?"   
  
"It's just not really your scene, is all." She smiles at him. "Who gave it to you?"  
  
He sighs, a huff, tugs down his sleeve. Goes back to his paper, then thinks better of it, tucks his arm between his leg and the armrest so she can't get at it. It's uncomfortable and looks odd, and he regrets doing it right away. Marge sighs in reply, and sets to fiddling with the radio instead.   
  
*   
  
It’s a woman at the airport bar that makes for the pivotal moment of the year. She’s older than him, quite older but keeping herself sharp and attractive—the kind of beauty that has gone from soft to practiced: pencil skirt, dark heels, a matching suitcase. Halfway through a drink she asks Arthur where he’s heading, and he hesitates before saying, Home. He taps a beat onto the bar top with the bottom of his glass, looks inside it in case something interesting has happened to the ice, then sets it aside. Breathes in. Smooths down his tie. He’s having a bad week, sleep doesn’t come as easily anymore and he’s in need of a haircut, keeps on forgetting to get one.   
  
“Where’s home?” she asks, striking a tone between curious and disinterested.   
  
“Boston.”   
  
“Ah!” He’s got her attention at that. It’s the kind of switch people do when the conversation can be redirected to them. He figures she’s from around there, and sure enough—  
  
“Whereabouts, in Boston?”   
  
He’s going to answer. He is going to, instantly, not even thinking about it—street name, neighbourhood, the locally known bakery from across the road—but at the end of the short breath there’s nothing, a blank pause that takes him by surprise. He exhales through his nose, frowning, and finds himself unable to recall the name of his street, the number of his apartment. He digs back deeper. The last time he’s been there.   
  
All he finds is a vague memory of eating cereal over the kitchen counter, then watching the telly until someone had called. He recalls getting a beer while still on the phone, remembers the light from inside the fridge being brighter than anything else in the room—the blinds were down, he never feels the need to open them if he’s just going to go to sleep or leave in a few hours anyway.   
  
He realises, without much of a startle or surprise, that he hates the place. Hates being there, hates coming back to it, hates the dark sulking it forces him into—the plastic chairs in the kitchen, the aluminium door of the fridge, the way the television reflects off the glass top of the coffee table.   
  
On the plane, yet again on the plane, he decides he is no longer going to live where he’s lived. He listens to old Richard Hawley hits, hears him howling over his headset and imagines he’s in a movie, in a montage, in that thoughtful moment where everything starts to change.  
  
When he gets to Boston he bookmarks some estate agent websites, and immediately begins to procrastinate on his own expectations. In the end it takes him six months to move out. He gets a second-floor apartment in an older building, thinking—half-joking, half-serious—that perhaps being closer to the street will reintroduce him to this society somehow. That people will shout up at random on seeing an open window, ask him, What’s up, man, ask him for a drink down at the bar. Marge helps him move, sort of, sitting in the car next to him as they follow the movers’ truck. She’s silent, but he thinks she thinks it was a good decision. This seems like the kind of decision she’d approve. He can’t imagine her wanting him to stay where he was.   
  
Later, between the boxes and scattered furniture, they lean out the kitchen window together and look down the back alley, down at the fire escape zigzagging down the building’s length.   
  
“I could jump that,” he says, confident.   
  
“Fifty bucks says you can’t,” she counters, giving him a sideways smile. She sways forward, her hair hanging down, over the pane, over the street.   
  
“Don’t need your money,” is his answer, overly dismissive, definitely not chickening out.   
  
Looking back years ahead, it’s this he remembers from this year. Twelve months, days upon days and dozens of cities, countries, people he’s met—nothing, all blurred together into a hurried mass of whatever it was that had happened and just this, this day, the move is what stays with him. Sitting in the hot car with Marge, watching the caked dirt on the back of the moving truck for the duration of the drive, the message someone had written in the dust— _learn to park!_ —his new apartment, empty and full of light, his sister, smiling at him as she called him a pussy.   
  
It’s so little. Such a small fraction of a year, and he often wonders if there’s someone he’s said something to during that period, a person he’d met—slept with, perhaps—that had remembered him, had been waiting for a word from him, had been holding on to a picture of him all these years and he had no idea. Not the slightest clue.   
  
Unlikely, he thinks, but still. Wonders. Pulls his sleeve over his bracelet. Wonders.   
  
*   
  
A few weeks after he's turned thirty-three, a painful affair that started off with a wine glass at nine in the morning to chase off sobriety, Liam sets him up with a cousin. She's young, the kind of early twenties that acts older—not noticing the age difference or at least doing a good job at faking it—taking the mention of his birthday in stride, looking far more worried about how she's coming across. She articulates, clearly, and he catches her slipping into a different accent whenever she gets excited, starts talking about something that interests her. It's the same one Liam's always had. He wonders why she thinks it'll make her unattractive, where she got the idea and decides he just thinks it's endearing. They go to a fish restaurant by a lake, realising belatedly sitting outside isn't exactly working in their advantage. A cloud of scavenging birds fly overhead, low, and the gulls pace back and forth by their table, big and hunch-backed.   
  
The conversation is a bit stilted, but not unusually so for as far as first dates go. She clutches on to the strap of her shoulder bag a lot. Moves with small gestures.   
  
For the most part Arthur tries very hard not to think about how she's almost Merlin's age now. He hasn't thought about the boy this close to the surface for a while now. He hasn't had to stop himself from thinking about him for even longer.  
  
There's one moment, when they're walking along the embankment and she—gingerly, with a small smile—snatches his cigarette from his lips, takes a short drag herself, that he feels dizzy with a faraway longing.   
  
"I don't usually smoke," she says, apologetic, smoke drifting on her words—giving him a sideway glance. She coughs a little on the next drag. Gives him back the cigarette.   
  
He takes it back, numbly, and holds it in his hand for the rest of the walk—forgetting about it. It breaks off in ash by the end, and he notices the dead butt only much later. Throws it away, in the mud, bewildered and a little annoyed.   
  
There is no second date after that. Soon enough, he forgets her name.  
  
*  
  
London is precisely what it was four, fifteen, twenty years ago, even the smudged dots of old chewing gum on the pavement following the same patterns as they always have. Most of the time Arthur tells himself that he hasn’t been avoiding the city, has only turned down offers because of overlaps in dates and the notion that he should take some time for himself, have some weekends off at home for a change. There are days, though, there are days that he gets off the phone with a representative from a company near Slough and the accent lingers in his mind, the distanced sound of left-sided traffic over the line, and the fact that he said  _No, no I can’t see that happening, not with that short a time notice_  feels like a lie swelling at the base of his throat. He says to himself, I’ll go back eventually, and then has months until the next offer to reconsider, to not follow up on his promise.  
  
Eventually the decision was made for him at a Schiphol airport on his way back home, an exasperated young man explaining there had been some issues, that his flight was being redirected, that he was going to have to switch flights over Heathrow. Arthur didn’t throw a scene—he was beyond that by now, with years of travel and a sense of international superiority when it came to airports—took it in side, calm and vaguely put-upon. But as the airplane started down the taxiway he was already eyeing the window nervously, licking his lips over and over—wiping at his mouth with a somewhat clammy hand. He asked for orange juice and got Fanta instead, fumed over that for a while, and then they were landing—a short forty minutes later, with no way to go but down.   
  
Surely it wasn’t normal to get this crazy over being in the same country as someone you used to sleep with, he thinks, hailing a cab with a vague plan to kill the coming six hours. He tries to recall what coming back after the whole Gwen thing had been like, but only remembers being tired and unhappy, his first week at the Wyllts’—grudging and vaguely uncomfortable, cheering himself up by flirting with Nina at work.  
  
It’s late January, a cold day with barely any clouds, the sun low and bright over the city—London slowly melting away the last of the snow, the small patches of white between curbs and railings of bridges, the sludge disappearing along the side of the road. Arthur steps out of the cab and through a crowd scattered over the small square between the buildings, people smoking out by the statue, having a cuppa, eating their paper-wrapped lunch. He’s not quite sure what it is he means to do here, but he has six hours to kill, and only so many people he could stand to see. He figures the security will recognise him, but the security is new, and the fact he says he used to work here for a while doesn’t make them any less inclined to let him in. He tries another angle, tries to say it like he’s heard it in movies, Call your boss! I’m sure he’ll confirm!, laughing like this is ridiculous and looking around for someone he can grab on—let  _them_  explain how important Arthur used to be, and is a little shocked to actually find someone standing across the entrance hall by the elevators, in her coat and scarf, rummaging through her bag.   
  
“Wait, she—!” is what he says to the security man, looking from him to Nina, gesturing haplessly for a moment before settling for a wave, a loud, “Nina! Nina!”   
  
She doesn’t hear him. He says, “I swear she knows me, she just can’t—“ He cuts off on a frustrated note, drumming on the high reception counter before trying again, wilder this time. “ _Nina!_ ” he shouts, waving once, adding a laughing, “Oi!”   
  
She looks up at that. For a moment she’s disoriented, isn’t sure whether she’s really heard her name, looking about with uncertainly. He smiles, hand halfway up still, when she sees him. A frown settles in at that, one that doesn’t light up as she starts toward the reception, like he’s too pixelated to recognise from afar.   
  
“Arthur?” she calls, close enough, and Arthur smiles wider—nods yes, says yes, “Yes!” and “Hi!” and, turning to security, “Now who looks a fool?”   
  
She hugs him hello, immediately, the sort of hug you get when someone is too stunned to see you—to perhaps even place you—even if you didn’t have that kind of relationship to begin with. She laughs while holding him, pushing him back and still laughing, incredulously.   
  
“What are you doing here!”  
  
“Hi!” he says, again, holding her by her arms—emphasizing the sentiment. “I have a six hour delay with my flight. Thought I’d check what you kids were up to. My god, Nina. Hi! Hello! How are you!”  
  
“I’m good! I’m—brilliant, wow. Arthur. Arthur Penders. Wow.” She scans him, looks him over, checking. Then, with a small shake of her head, “Oh—hey, I was just on—“ She gestures at the entrance. “Lunch. Would you like to—?”   
  
“Oh! Yes. Yes. Absolutely.” He lets go of her arms, smiles. “I’m starving.” He isn’t. He might as well, though.   
  
“Good. Great.” She barks out a laugh, surprised, like life is crazy. “Let’s go, then!”  
  
“Alright!” he says, like life is crazy for him too, and they do a little awkward dance in who is going to start walking first.   
  
Nina tells him where they’re going, that it’s not far away, a five minute walk tops—but Arthur is too busy in his head trying to remember how he used to be around her to pay much attention, trying to recall the exact nature of the lies he’d told her, in case she asks. He figures she’ll ask. She seems like the person to remember.   
  
“You know,” she says, later, when they’re sat at a table by a tall window overlooking the business street. She’s fiddling with the laminated menu, and he notes her hair is longer these days—darker, too. She looks fine. “You know, I still have that cactus you gave me. When you left. I took it home at one point and now it’s in my kitchen. By the window. Right next to the kettle.”   
  
“Sounds like a fine place to be,” he says, nodding. Glances out the window. Back to her. There’s a pause, she pretends to look for the waiter, and he continues with, “So how are you? It’s been, what, four years?”  
  
“Gosh, that long? Gosh. Yeah. I’ve—we’ll I’ve—“ She holds up her hand in a quick, self-conscious gesture, smiling as though she doesn’t want to show how much she loves holding up her finger like that—the wedding ring on the left, an old copper ring with a stone on the finger next to it.  
  
“Wow, that’s—“ He nods again. “Well done you! How long ago? Who is he? Do I—?“  
  
“No! No. I met him some time after you left. We got married last summer.”   
  
“Summer wedding. That must’ve been nice.”   
  
She smiles, remembering, nodding. “Jo. Joseph. He’s—amazing, really. It’s—great. It’s great.”  
  
“I’m happy for you, Nina. Really, that’s . . . good. I’m happy you’re. Well.”  
  
“How about you?” she asks, glances over her shoulder again—still waiting for that waiter. “Still living the wild life?”   
  
“’fraid so.” A young man has come to take their orders. Apron slung low on his hips, a mop of dark hair, and Arthur is determinedly not looking up as he adds another, “The wild life. That’s it.” to maintain their conversation while she talks to the waiter, ordering a sandwich.   
  
It’s not him. Arthur knows it’s not him, but it could be, and he realises Merlin’s face is a blurred image in his mind by now—a memory that’s too close and worn to be accurate. He must’ve grown so much, he knows, and how would Arthur be able to recognise, how could he know for sure what he—  
  
“And for you, sir?”   
  
Arthur glances up. It’s not him. He asks for the same thing Nina’s ordered, a little out of it, confused in the skitter of his thoughts—the momentary shakiness that came about him, the way he could feel his heartbeat in his throat.   
  
“How is your brother doing?” she asks when they’re cutting up their sandwiches, Nina picking out the tomatoes from in between. “I remember him. Sweet little thing, wasn’t he? I imagine he’s not that little anymore, though, is he?”   
  
“Twenty-one,” he answers easily. Switches up a smile, somehow. “Taller than me by now.”  
  
“Twenty-one!” She shakes her head at her sandwich, admonishing the passing of time. “You’re going to see him while you’re here?”  
  
He nods, god knows why he nods, absently poking his fork at the bread—eating, answering through a mouthful, “Gonna go down to see them later.”  
  
“That’s lovely,” she says, and it’s odd, how effortless this lie still is. “I’m glad,” she adds, seriously, making sure he sees she means it, as though to mean that this is a crucial thing for him—as though if he hadn’t had this, it would be sad.   
  
Afterwards, after they’ve said goodbye—two kisses on the cheek, another hug, a squeeze, and she’s giving him her number, saying  _if you’re ever in town_ , and Arthur misses the days when things like that were said in lower voices, with different intentions—after, he walks off with his lunch heavy on his stomach, his scarf wrapped tight around him, tucked into his coat. He takes the underground back to the centre, and from there a bus to a station, and from there a cab, which he has park on a street with its lights flicking on and off—they’re only there for a bit.   
  
Arthur sits in the passenger’s seat with his hand on the handle for ten minutes, staring out the window, feeling not quite well. The house is the same, the branches of the tree in the front yard still scraping against the window with the slightest breeze. The weedy bushes, the living room curtains only partly open, the kitchen not visible from where he is—the view of the street reflecting off the glass.   
  
He waits. He’s not sure for what, exactly, but he waits with his heart beating like mad, his shirt clinging to his back under his coat—fingers clinging on to the door handle. He licks his lips, freezing every time someone comes passing by walking their dog, coming out of their houses to take out their wheelie bin.   
  
“’scuse me? Sir?” the driver tries for the second time. “Are we waiting for someone?”  
  
“Hm?” Arthur isn’t paying attention, not at first, but then the question sinks and he turns—clears his throat. “Um. No.” He frowns, runs a hand over his face. “No, no, I just—checking, something.” He pushes his hand into his hair, scratching at the back of his head. “If you could take me back to the station, please.”   
  
“Nooo problem,” he says, turning the wheel with both hands, driving off the parking spot.   
  
Arthur looks out the window, hoping for something to happen. A door to open, someone to come around from the back, someone—grudging, perhaps, having been made to put the wheelie bin out by his mother, even though he said he’d do it later.   
  
None of that happens. Nothing happens, even though he’s there. Even though it’s a brilliantly sunny day, and the time feels right, and he thinks if something kept him here today, he might never want to go anywhere else again. But today it’s just a street, not acknowledged by anyone else as anything more, and Arthur drives off, back to the airport, with nowhere to go but back on that plane.   
  
*   
  
He’s bored when the accident happens. It's a small month after his visit to England and he's bored and dozing against the plane's window pane while they hobble over the taxiway, the AC dry on his face. It’s the last time he’s ever bored on a plane, ever, and later it would seem impossible to just sit there and wait for a flight to be over—later he would barely be able to recall the notion of killing time on a plane, of lazily waiting for his food to arrive—but right now he’s in a different lifetime, adjusting his pillow against his forehead as the pilot announces takeoff.   
  
Is it much of an accident, as far the track record of planes go? No, no it isn’t, it makes the news with the announcement of two people in the hospital, one with a broken leg, the other with a concussion, and the rest are fine—shaken up. It is a hot morning in Orlando, the humidity steaming off the tar, blurring the horizon. Hottest summer in years, the weather report has been repeating for days now, and apparently a wheel that needed replacing hadn’t been replaced, something about the heat melting the rubber and frame together. The plane is pushing forward for under a minute when it starts swerving off the taxiway, wildly, the wings wobbling and shaking the passengers in their seats. People scream, cry, instantly in a panic—they’re hurtling down an open grass field now, through dry mud and yellow patches of vegetation. The breaks screech and they’re not slowing down, and Arthur thinks they’ll crash into something sooner or later, thinks they’ll catch on fire, also that maybe it’s a dream, the horrible feverish kind he sometimes gets when napping during the day. But in case it’s not a dream, in case of that he has a backup thought where he tells himself—miserably, the blood already drained from his face, heart beating in his fingertips—tells himself things drowned out by exclamation marks and colours, emotions bigger than he can put into words. He bangs his head pretty badly a few times, and by the time he plane has come to a stop—by the time the vessel’s shocked silence turns into sobbing relief—Arthur is bleeding from the head. He is holding on to the armrests and thinks he won’t be able to let go if he tried. He is shaking, uncontrollably.   
  
He doesn’t need stitches in the end, he’s fine, he is fine. He is sitting on a stretcher with his jacket in hand, sweating in the heat, in his proper button up with the bloody collar. A crowd of frazzled people is buzzing about the place—medics, firemen, suits of social authority worrying over it all. A kid loses their mother for a moment then finds her, latches on to the hem of her shirt. Arthur is completely out of it. He thinks, I need to take a piss like mad, and beyond that it’s mainly a blank space of a morning gone unexpectedly awry. In a way it all feels larger than life. In another way, he still really needs to take a piss. There’s no way he’s getting on another plane today. There’s no way he’s getting on another plane, ever.   
  
He twists his head away from the hands of a medic, trying to have another look at his wound, and says—  
  
“Hey.” It’s scratchy, inaudibly hoarse, and he clears his throat. “Hey do you know how I can, like, get back?”   
  
The medic frowns at him for a moment, and Arthur adds, “I really need to take a piss.”   
  
There’s a trolleybus that’s been arranged. It’s air-conditioned, and standing holding on to the rubber noose, half waiting for the bus to swerve off its path, Arthur wants to be back home. He wants the light of his apartment, the street noises in his kitchen, wants to sleep in his bed forever. He wants someone to drape his arm over, too, someone warm under the sheets. Someone who smells like sleep. Anyone. Someone. He feels so goddamn lonely and he still needs to piss, like really needs to go, and the bus is swaying. His head hurts. He wants  _home._  
  
At the airport, there’s a scene where he’s not quite sure what to do next. It’s the same hall it was earlier, but it feels like he’s been away for ages. There buzz of gossip and panic has wafted over this far, and the crowds by the gates are anxious, people looking wary and solemn—as if anything at all has happened to them. He glances at his phone. Is someone going to call him? Should he call someone? Is there anyone who would be interested in this news, who he knows well enough to expect sympathy, and not have it be weird?   
  
He finds a deserted waiting hall, sits down with his back to the high windows. He calls his boss.   
  
“Shit,” is what he gets for his story. Puffed into the receiver. “Are you—are you okay? How are you feeling?”  
  
“Fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine, just a scratch. I’m fine. Just—“ He looks down at his hand, shaky between his knees, and fists it into a ball. “Shaken up.”  
  
“Absolutely. Absolutely, yes, I can imagine. Just turned on the news. It’s something about cucumbers in the—oh, yeah, fuck. There. It’s on now. Yeah. That’s Orlando, alright.”  
  
In a twitchy moment of anger, Arthur lets the phone slip from his ear—over his forehead, pressing it into his brow as he takes a breath. Then, clearing his throat, “I don’t think I’ll make it back on time for the meeting.”   
  
“Absolutely, I understand. No, that’s fine, Arthur. Absolutely. Take care of yourself first, absolutely.” There’s a pause. “Just take the next plane back and we’ll conference call you when the meeting starts, alright?”   
  
The next plane back. Arthur’s stomach lurches in panic, and the thought of any kind of business calls makes him want to throw up. He thought he was going to die less than an hour ago. What the fuck did he care about business? Nothing, is what he cared. Even more than before he wants to go home. His heart has gotten heavy with the feeling, sagging him down, and he’s never been more aware that he’s far away—that he’s somewhere  _else_  this time, and not just somewhere.   
  
It’s long past sundown by the time he’s back. On the plane he sat next to a man who asked him whether he didn’t fly often—Arthur was so adamant about not looking out the window. He could still see the wild, awkward flapping of the wings. With every wobble of turbulence he tensed up, held his breath.   
  
“No,” he’d said to the man. Glanced at the window on the opposite aisle. “I travel all the time.”  
  
The man was nice. He reminded Arthur of one of his father’s friends. He spent some time going over how, statistically, it was very unlikely to have two accidents on the same day, from the same airport. And since there was already one, they were practically as safe as they could be. Arthur saw the logic, sort of, but it changed very little. By the time they landed he was a nervous wreck, sweaty and exhausted, his feet too hot in his shoes. His boss had called, hours before, and Arthur hadn’t even heard it go off. There’s panic, for a moment, but then he’s over it. He supposes he is fucked.   
  
Home is quiet. Dark with long shadows, the dim light from the nightshop on the street opposite coming in through the window, making faint squares on the hardwood floor. Suitcase by the door, jacket thrown over to the couch, he gets a beer from the kitchen. Opens the bottle by levering the top on the edge of the counter and hitting down. He’s glad for beer. Right now, taking a sip, he is glad for it.   
  
He goes into his bedroom, turns on the light, and with a sigh settles on the edge of the bed. Takes the phone from his pocket. Stares at it for a moment. Dials.   
  
“Hey, Marge. S’me.”   
  
He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees.   
  
“I, um. Hey—have you listened to the news today? Hm. Hmhm. Yes, did you—what? Oh. No, the thing. In Orlando. . . . With the plane? Did you—? Just. This morning.”  
  
He closes his eyes.   
  
“Hmhm. Right. Well, I—I was there, today. Earlier.”   
  
The room is quiet, Marge’s reply a tinny echo in the silence of the house. Arthur takes in a shaky breath.   
  
“On that plane,” he tells her. He pushes the heel of his hand to his eye. He sobs, once, and then calms himself—rubs at his eyes, says, “Fine, no I’m—Just a bump to the head. Got a band-aid.” He smiles, wryly. “No, just a normal one.”   
  
Outside, a truck is backing up, beeping. Arthur swallows. “Yes,” he answers her question. “No it’s okay. I just wanted to—you know.” Then, “Marge. Margaret. Listen, Marge—Marge.”   
  
She quiets down on the other side. He’s closer to his sister these days than he’s ever been. “Marge, I don’t want to travel anymore. I don’t, I don’t want—I don’t.”   
  
The truck stops beeping. There’s the distinct click of flickering lights, of a momentary parking, of the driver being right back, just five minutes, just gone for a second—they swear. Arthur’s hand slips back, fingers carding into his hair. “You think?” he says, quiet.   
  
Margaret’s  _yes_  sounds clear over the phone. Definitive.   
  
“Okay,” Arthur says after a moment. “Then—okay.”   
  
* 

He’s grown up on an overdose of 80s TV, and has now reached the point in his life where—at thirty something—the first thing he thinks to do when going through a drastic change in his life, is pick an anthem. Two days into his unemployment he is showering with the radio on in the other room, and Nina Simone comes on, all trombones and a base and a voice singing about a new dawn, a new day, singing  _feeling good_  and Arthur hums along at first, then mumbles, and by the second chorus he is wailing with—eyes closed under the spray of the shower, making an embarrassing picture but meaning every word of it. He’s quit his job. He used to be corporate and the script dictates he’s now going to live an inspiring life. He will find a hobby, and have a catharsis, and find a hidden talent for watercolours and let his hair grow long. He will get a dog.   
  
He’s  _feeling good_  on the third day, too, getting coffee and staying at the shop to drink it. He’s walking down his street with his jacket slung over his shoulder, he’s holding it with a finger hooked under the tag, because he’s always wanted to be that person but always felt like a wanker when trying. No more, though, his jacket is slung and he takes a flyer from a young girl with a tattoo on her neck inviting him to a music event this weekend and he will go, he shall go to that event, and maybe he will even get a tattoo. He always thought he could really work a tattoo. He is  _feeling good_  because it’s a  _new dawn_  and a new day and he’s cooking, too, sort of, if stir-frying some vegetables counts and he hasn’t worn a suit in five days. Six days and he doesn’t have anything to wake up early for but he still does, wakes up at half past seven, has an entire day to do whatever he wants, anything, anything he can think of.   
  
Seven days, one-hundred and two plays of  _I’m Feeling Good_  by Nina Simone on iTunes, ten trips to the coffee place down the block and a half hour at an open-air concert that smelled like beer and sounded like punk to him, and Arthur—settled on his couch, scratching at the back of his neck—pauses the song. Takes it off replay. Places the laptop on the table and flops back, head tilted up. He stares at the ceiling light until it gives a weak flicker, and tries, haplessly, to come up with that whatever he wants to do. That anything he can think of.   
  
The last time he was truly without a job was more or less ten years ago. He was out of school for a year, had left the first London-based company that would have him in search for something better. He’d stayed with some friends, been fuzzily drunk for a great deal of it, had spent the time between job hunting fighting with his father over the phone and then complaining about it to girls at loud post-grad parties on the old campus. He remembers trying to talk to someone over the din of the music, leaning close and shouting—feeling your breath on their hair, their neck. He’d felt like he was on pause at the time. Like life was waiting for its starting shot.   
  
Now, sat on his nice couch in his well-lit apartment, he feels little else but lost. Exasperated at the memory of his younger self. What kind of point had he tried to prove with staying up for days? With showing up at an interview still drunk? What an idiot, he thinks, and wonders at how he used to make friends. Where he used to find people who liked him as much as they did, and how come he’d forgotten. He used to be so popular. People used to adore him. He could recall a time he was the centre of the universe.   
  
These days it seems like a challenge to even stay at the centre of his own goddamn universe. There seem to be more people out there now, everywhere, masses of them with places to be and other things to look at—glancing at him as he glances back. Walking on. He is not the highlight of their day.   
  
Two weeks is all it takes for him to realise that the last thing he wants is to get to know himself better. He establishes rather quickly that he doesn’t fancy himself quite as much anymore, isn’t keen on having time to think about that, and that his job wasn’t—as TV suggested—that thing standing in the way of his happiness but rather protecting him from finding unhappiness in himself. He professes as much to Marge, explaining this with gestures—stretched hands meeting at the fingertips depicting an imaginary gate between his chest and the rest of the world.   
  
His sister does not look impressed by this at all. She tells him his eyes are looking brown, he’s so full of shit, but smiles while saying so—sighing in a way that makes him think she hoped for something else. Hoped for him to show up for lunch in sandals, with a satchel of watercolours and hair to his shoulders. A goatee.   
  
He compromises a little.   
  
“I was thinking,” he tells her, later, surveying the busy street from under the shadow of the terrace, sunglasses down. “I was thinking . . . “  
  
Marge slowly turns to look at him when he doesn’t elaborate. Eyebrows raised. “Yeah? You were thinking?”  
  
“I was thinking maybe I should get a dog.”   
  
She laughs. “Fuck off, Arthur,” is what she has to say to that. He grins at her, at the street, then back at her.   
  
“I think I’m gonna get a dog.”   
  
*  
  
He meets Julia when walking the dog. More than anything it's because he's forgotten most things about dogs and especially how quickly they grow from the size of a toe to a small mountain of energy, pulling him along with loud heaving breaths and a sniffing nose. Tummy is a five months old Labrador and should not be let off the leash while they're walking the path of the park along the lake but  _is_  let off the leash while they walk the path by the lake and consequently skips and jumps and pauses to thoughtfully smell under a leaf or two before promptly trampling into the water after some ducks. Julia is the one who comes to a standstill while Arthur is screaming at the dog to get back  _right now_ , red-faced and losing his shit quick, what do you even do with a dog that won't get out of the water?, and Julia just stands there—laughs at him for the larger part, but a kind of laugh like she's trying to find an appropriate moment to ask whether he'd like help, but can't quite get in between the shouts and large hand motions gesturing  _here, Tum. HERE! Now!_    
  
"Maybe you could—" Julia starts on an end of a laugh, gets cut off with—  
  
" _What?_  Maybe I could do  _what?_  Would you rather do this? Do you see your dog doing this? I don't, I don't see anyone's fucking dog pulling this kind of bullshit but my own stupid—"  
  
"Whoa. Okay. Whoa." She holds up her hands in defence, then warily—amusedly—reaches into her bag, slung over her side, coming up with a tattered dog's tennis ball. She whistles, sharply from under her tongue, and Tum—paddling in the water—snaps her attention to the two of them. That's when the lady throws the ball in the water, follows it with a shout of encouraging  _get the ball! Get the ball!_ , and together they watch as the dog goes and gets the ball, turns in the water to bring it back. When she's on the grassy decline from the path Arthur makes to go to her, do god knows what he doesn't remember the first thing about chastising a dog, but Julia holds him in place with an arm to the chest. Nods at the dog, who on cue starts madly shaking off the water, tennis ball still clamped in her mouth.   
  
"Thanks," Arthur says on a mutter, later, kneeling at Tummy's side, trying to battle the ball out of her mouth with brute force. It's not working.   
  
"Don't mention it," Julia says, a little too self-satisfied, laughing again. "Let her keep it. It's fine."  
  
" _No,_ " Arthur grits out. "No, she needs to learn to—" he tugs, "—let—it—go!"  
  
" _You_  need to learn to let it go," she points out, look down at her old terrier, "Doesn't he?"  
  
Arthur makes a huffy noise, disliking her and liking her at the same time, and continues trying to make his dog behave. She won't, and he gives up eventually, (at least she's on the leash now), and Julia waits with quiet and funny interest. When Arthur wants to continue his walk, she invites herself and falls into step, giving him a thin smile. He glances at her from under a frown, trying not to scowl, and she introduces herself as Julia who has been walking her dog here since she moved out three years ago works at an electrical store around the corner but only because she's trying to finish her PhD which by the way isn't coming along as great as she's hoped. Arthur introduces himself as Arthur. By the end of the walk, somehow, in a conversation he can't quite call to mind anymore, he's agreed to go on a date later that week.   
  
He meets her way before then. The next day, in fact, walking Tummy again—around the same place, same time. He's mostly annoyed about it and Julia seems to think it's way funnier than it is, and they end up having lunch at a nearby place, his dog tied to the foot of the table and going mad over every waiter that passes with a bit of food, hers napping under the chair, quirking an ear occasionally but moving very little. Arthur is the most uneasy he's ever been in a restaurant environment, torn between worrying over the fact that this might be a date and that Tummy appears to be licking dust fluffs off the floor, ends up acting like a jackass and getting bothered over the smallest things, complaining over the stained glass they serve him his water in.   
  
Julia, in a perpetual disposition, still appears amused. When she's not, she's telling him to just enjoy his goddamn food already, then glances down at her dog—repeats,  _shouldn't he?_  
  
The girl makes him the most uncomfortable he can remember being in a long time. She does things like tie her jacket around her hips when she's hot, undermines serious statements by repeating them as a question to her dog, smiles at shitty situations like they're outside of her and manages to use the word 'fart' with a frequency and a lack of embarrassment that are beyond him. And he likes her. He's almost sure he likes her.   
  
They kiss on the third date, or date-like-meeting, because Arthur isn't even sure how they're doing this. They walk by her house on the way back from the park and she wants to show him the place, and then she does, and in the kitchen—by the window with the hanging plant—she stands on her tiptoes and kisses him with a smile, a hand fisted to the hem of his shirtsleeve, a lever keeping her up. His hand is below her shoulder, and her arm feels small and warm, and he thinks he might like her. She kisses like a real sweet person, and he thinks he might really like her.   
  
On the fifth date, or simply just some time later, they're at his apartment inspecting the place like she isn't the only one seeing it for the first time. She pretends to be a buyer, he pretends to pass judgement on whoever lives in this place and they laugh about it, fall into silence while they have a coffee leaning over the fire escape. It's afternoon and she needs to get back to work in a half hour, so she's off on her way with a peck to his lips and a, See ya, Brit, and it's five minutes after she leaves and he's still grinning a little that he notices her jacket on the couch. The phone rings, and on a line of thought he doesn't question he picks up with a,   
  
"Your jacket's still here you idiot."   
  
There's a silent pause, a rustling against the receiver, then—  
  
"I'm sorry is this—" A man, definitely not Julia, clears his throat. "I'm looking for—Penders? Arthur? Is this—?"  
  
Arthur screws shut his eyes, smiling a little in embarrassment, says, "Speaking, yeah, um—sorry, I thought you were—someone—never mind! This is Arthur. And you're . . . "   
  
"Oh. Um. Well . . . " There's another silence, movement against the receiver, a short breath and an uneasy sigh, and when the man speaks again it's lower—like someone hunching over the phone trying to keep quiet. "I um. I—we—" He stops. Arthur, in a pause, realises he's British. "Do you remember ah . . . staying at a place, some years back? With a family. Outside of London. Hunith Wyllt? And—"  
  
Before he can finish Arthur cuts off with a sharp "Yes," and another, "Yes," his heart thudding madly, madly in ears and heavy in his chest, his fingers feel funny and he leans against the arm of the couch, knowing, already  _knowing_  but asking all the same. "Who is this?"  
  
"It's—Merlin." A breathy, laugh-like sound, ending on a, "Hi."  
  
It takes Arthur a moment. "Hi."  
  
"Hi. Um. I, ah—how. How are you?"  
  
Arthur, barely breathing, slips off the couch arm—onto the couch, legs sprawled awkwardly, feeling the colour drain from his face. "I—" He starts, doesn't know what he wants to say, settles for a croaky, "Good. Good. You?"  
  
"I'm—great, yeah. I'm—" He has a slight rumble to his voice, because he's lowering it and because he sounds older, so much older, his voice barely recognisable—if at all, really. Arthur wouldn't have been able to recognise it. His chest clenches, a sudden spike of emotion, and on the next breath Merlin continues with a, "Actually, I, ah. Don't be mad but I um. Looked you up? I looked up where you, well, where you live and I had a bit of a speech prepared that would make it sound a little less creepy or whatever but I've forgotten everything right now and, just." He breaths a shaky sigh into the phone. "I'm kind of—in the neighbourhood."  
  
"What—neighbourhood?" Irrationally, Arthur glances at the door. "I live in America."  
  
"I know. I know y—I know you do. I'm here. I mean—I've been here. For a while. I thought—" He chokes a little on the end of the word, swallows. "I don't . . . know."  
  
Arthur doesn't, either. He searches for words, thoughts, for anything but comes up empty. His mind is crowding in on itself and his mouth stays slightly open, lips parted, breathing. They don't make template conversations for phonecalls like this. He wants to say something because Merlin isn't saying something, and he's afraid maybe he'll hang up because of the silence, hang up because he'll think Arthur is quiet because he doesn't want to talk, or isn't even on the other line anymore or—  
  
"Look, could I—like, come up? Or will that be too weird? Or too . . . " Merlin trails off. "This feels ridiculous. I'm right around the corner. I know it's—sudden, but. I'm—yeah. I'm outside."   
  
"You mean—I'm sorry, what? Here, outside—I'm, in Boston, you're in Boston? You're—" Arthur glances at the door again, less irrational now. "Here?"  
  
"Not—! Not because of you or anything, I was— Fuck. Can I, just, come by? I'm not good on the phone." A fire truck that passes by Arthur's window echoes back at him with a slight delay through the receiver. "I get. Confused and stuff."  
  
Arthur hasn't an answer quite yet. He is still lagging behind three sentences, trying to catch up with the conversation, blinking getting more rapid as he frowns from the door to window, until he simply shuts his eyes—screws his expression into a pained one until Merlin interrupts with a,   
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Yeah. Yes. Yes, I guess. Okay."   
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I guess. Yes." Arthur licks his lips nervously. "You—know the house number, or—?"  
  
"Yeah I—" He huffs, uneasy. "I wrote it on my hand, here, it's—one oh five, it said, in the register, is that . . . "  
  
"That's—right. That's it. Well. I, uh . . . I suppose, I'll . . . "  
  
"Hear me at the door. I guess. Yes."   
  
"Alright, then. Then. I'll see you. Then."  
  
"Okay," Merlin says, and then, quiet, "Bye."   
  
He hangs up. Arthur's phone is hot against his face, hot in his hand as his arm drops limp at his side. He lets out a breath, a held-up shudder of a breath. He feels sick, nauseated and stomach twisted up all odd, feels like frayed nerves and unwanted connections and like maybe he could get out through the fire-escape, sneak out, run to somewhere and hide out until evening, maybe change his number and never have to deal with this again. He feels like all the sorts of different people he once in his life used to be, struggling to recall how he used to behave five years ago, ten, twenty. In a madly hapless thought, he thinks about calling Julia. On a second, perhaps Marge. On a third he is up on his feet, frantically picking up stuff, putting them down three inches to the left, putting a scarf on the hanger by the door, taking glasses off the coffee table, wiping the dust off the top of the telly with his sleeve, kicking dvds under the couch, scratching fingers through his hair muttering  _shit shit shit_  draping the blanket more neatly over his bed then taking this one thing to the other side of the room for no apparent reason and by the time the buzzer goes he is standing by the intercom with two shirts in his hand and a towel draped over his shoulder. The dog barks, at first distracted and then louder, getting up from her sleepy spot of sunlight.   
  
Arthur stays like that, frozen, somewhat blank and somewhat stuck, until there's a knock on the door. Tummy barks and jumps at him, nails digging into his leg for attention, for affirmation that there is someone to visit. She pads to the door, back, breathing loud and excited. She jumps again.   
  
Annoyed he pushes her away, and on the next dry-tongued swallow he is at the door, turning the knob with a shirt still in hand and trying to keep the dog at away with his knee then—there is Merlin. Out of no-where, flown in from bloody Mars, blinked into existence, out of the back of Arthur's mind and into reality again and the fraction-of-a-second travel has made him older. Only five years, logistically, but it has to have been so much longer. In a flash he notes everything, the pea coat, lines on the side of his mouth where he's laughed, glasses like they're in fashion these days big and rimmed and neck, adam's apple and eyes behind the big glasses and stubbled jaw and neck and a scarf over his coat over his shoulders like he's been too hot outside and chapped lips and the neck, and the eyes, and hair exactly the same but different, shorter or longer with curls that flop over his ears, peek out behind his neck. He is taller than Arthur. He is filling out that space. He is twenty-four and Arthur's heart goes wild, goes absolutely crazy, the bottom of his stomach pooling with heat and affection and a familiarity so strong it makes him ache. Tummy sniffs frantically between the spot where Arthur has pressed his knee and the doorframe, trying to get through.   
  
He can't do this. There's no way he will be able to do this. There is no way he will be able to croak out more than a broken sounding—  
  
"Hi."   
  
Merlin smiles, crookedly, an uncertain and shaky smile with folds and cheekbones and everything gets stuck in Arthur's throat.   
  
"Hi." He says. His voice is deeper like this as well. "Um. I . . . "   
  
As he trails off Arthur does the snapping out of something movement, the realising you've let someone stand at your doorway for too long, and bends down to hold Tummy by her collar, keeping her enthusiasm back as he steps aside with a polite smile. "Come in," he says, quietly, looking at Merlin's shoes.   
  
"Thanks." Merlin steps in, literally a step or two, stopping and then uncomfortably swaying in his spot—unsure whether to walk on. He takes his scarf off his shoulders, balls it up in his hands. He glances about nervously. It's quiet.  
  
"Would you—" Arthur, still bent to pull Tummy back, gestures with a shirt toward the kitchen. "Like something to drink?"   
  
Merlin looks trapped for a fraction, wringing at his scarf. He looks toward the kitchen, then chances a quick smile. They've switched to a bizarre sort of polite formality, completely out of place but impossible to steer away from once there.   
  
"No, no no," he says. "I'm good. Thank you."  
  
Arthur nods, once. A silence stretches, Arthur starting to wonder why he's holding two shirts, what to do with them now, how to let go of the dog without her trampling about and Merlin looks around him warily—glancing up at the ceiling to inspect for an unclear reason.   
  
"How long have you, ah, been in . . . Boston? Or, the states, I suppose, I mean . . . "  
  
"A while." Merlin nods this time, glances at Arthur, then down at his own hands. "Flew over four months ago, now. We only got here—I guess, two days ago? Three? Haven't even really seen the city, I just remembered that you . . . " He doesn't finish. Instead he softly clears his throat, looks away toward the kitchen, again vaguely inspecting.   
  
"It's a great city. You'll—I'm sure you'll love it. There's a lot of . . . great . . . " Arthur, on his turn, trails off as well. Tummy gets tired of tugging, of trying to gnaw at his hand, and decides to sit down instead—bored. Arthur pets her, hand sweaty and tense, and on the next breath—"Who's 'we'?"  
  
Merlin's attention is snapped back. "Oh, just. Me and some mates. We're in a . . . we have this band, we're—we're touring. It's been going pretty well so far and, well. Here we are!" He gives a funny little shrug, an awkward smile to go with it, not knowing how to hold himself in the middle space between a door and a living area, but all Arthur can take note of is how broad his back is, how scanning his features still gives him that thrill of a feeling he thought he'd forgotten, how it clenches at and scares him and how the slope of his nose is still that slope, and god, he hadn't even known he'd committed that to memory until just now.   
  
"You're in a band?"   
  
"Yeah. Taught myself the drums after all," he says this with a smile, one that starts out like he means it to be funny, only realises that it's not, that it's far from it, and the smile fades—somewhat bitter, wistful. Arthur swallows thickly, pulls the towel off his shoulder. Drops everything he had in hand in a pile on the floor, not looking up, interested in the dog's fur.  
  
"Anyway!" Merlin continues, unexpectedly louder. "I was actually wondering, because of that, the band, that is, because of—I'm in a band, and. We're playing tonight, and I was wondering if you might want to . . . "   
  
Arthur looks up.   
  
Merlin shrugs. He flips the scarf back over his neck, hangs on to either side, resting the weight of his arms on it. "Watch? Perhaps?"   
  
Tummy takes that moment to start breathing loudly again, tongue out of mouth, and pads over to Merlin. Smells at him, finds something particularly interesting at his knee, and licks at the jeans. Merlin crouches down, ruffles her ears, and it's awful to watch. It's  _endearing._  
  
"Oh," Arthur says, vague and a little too late. Oh, and, "I don't—I don't know, Merlin. I'm . . . actually really busy right now, really, and I'm just. . . "  
  
It's a lie. He's not busy. He hasn't been busy in a very long time. He hasn't even asked where it was, what time it was, it's the afternoon and he's lounging in his apartment—it's obvious he's not busy. It's clearly a lie.   
  
"Oh. Well, okay, that's . . . fine, of course, it's . . . " Merlin says, not looking away from the dog. He smooths his hand over her brow, and she twists trying to lick at his hand. "If you change your mind, we're playing at the Ballad. It's small but . . . they're paying, so. Half eight. If you want."  
  
"I want—" Words and intention overlapping, Arthur has to close his eyes for a moment, shake his head. "Of course I want, I just—can't. I have work in the morning, papers to go through, I . . . " he runs out of steam. "Can't."  
  
"Okay." Merlin looks at him. Stops petting Tummy. His expression hardens, and this is also awful, and he glances at the doorway on the next heartbeat. "Cool. Well. I'll be off, then, I suppose. It's . . . yeah." He gets up and looks about one more time, as though waiting for something, or trying to remember, but nothing comes. Arthur doesn't quite look at him. He feels stupid and obtuse. Scared out of his mind, too.   
  
Merlin is walking out. He's moving quickly now. "I'll see you around, then, or. Something."   
  
Arthur's replying, "Yeah," comes out late and scratchy, aimed at an empty doorway and sad, far too revealing, meeting nothing but the horrible judgement of an empty apartment. The lingering momentum of someone who was there a moment ago, who has gone and left behind the reminder of wanting to do it over, do it right for once, or at least more chances at that one-more-chance. He's been waiting for this day for years and he thinks, he thinks that he doesn't know why. He doesn't know why people ache for something, miss it so much it changes their entire makeup and then when it comes back into orbit, hovers close for the shortest of moments, the simplest action of reaching out to touch suddenly seems like the most impossible distance to cross. He doesn't know and the dog claws at his shoe, noses at his fingers and Arthur stands in his apartment, empty handed, the biggest coward he's ever known.   
  
*  
  
He goes. He doesn't go. He almost goes, then doesn't. He leans over the fire-escape and watches the building across the street, very much like his. The tree on the corner is in bloom, sending white little leaves adrift on a circling breeze, a curtain is stuck in the corner of an open window, fluttering, another window opens and shuts with the wind and a lady on the sidewalk holds on to her hat. Arthur switches between radio stations until every single song becomes unbearable, everything laden and meaningful, annoying him, and turns it off. He remembers he said he had work, and if he did show up how would he explain that, is halfway through a plan involving wearing his suit before aborting it. Turning on the television. Nothing holds his attention, so he goes back to putting on his suit, and spends a good half hour inspecting himself in the mirror. Undoing and doing up his tie again and again, heart in his throat, agonising over everything until his mind ties itself up in a mess and that's how he leaves the apartment: hungry with an undone tie, jacket over his shoulder, blood buzzing in his ears. He's never walked down these streets quite like this before. It's a long distance to his car.   
  
The bar is, as Merlin said, small. It's packed. There's already a crowd standing by what has to be a stage, Arthur can't see, perching himself by the bar and ordering a beer—draping his suit jacket over a stool. It's a young kind of place, pretend dilapidation attracting a certain part of the city's student body, early twenties masquerading as older and wiser things. Arthur misses it and is annoyed by it and feels utterly out of place, silly in his suit, looking for an ally in the barman.   
  
"They any good?" he asks over the din, nodding at the crowd.   
  
"You don't know them?" the barman asks, flipping a towel over his shoulder.   
  
Arthur breathes unevenly. He looks at the people, takes a gulp of his drink, swallows it down and, "A friend of mine is in the band."   
  
"Cool," he says. "They're good. I like them. Good sound. Funny guys, too. Which one's your friend?"  
  
"The—" He stops. There's a soundcheck and people are whooping, clapping for nothing. He doesn't know what Merlin does in the band. "The one with the—curls? Tall guy. Glasses."   
  
"Ah. The drummer. Cool." The barman nods, unwaveringly mellow. "Good drummer. Good energy, you know?"   
  
Arthur nods, vaguely, and drinks the rest of his beer in silence. The clapping and the cheering picks up, gets louder, and then there's a voice at the scratchy microphone trying to say hello, gets drowned out by the excited crowd, laughs and tries again—the noise dies down.   
  
"Whoa," the voice says, and Arthur slips off the stool, edges toward the far end of the crowd. He can see over now, sees a lanky man with a sweaty mess of brown hair at the mic, a guitar in hand. "Hello," he speaks, smiling and a bit abashed at the attention. "Whoa, loads of people. Alright. You sure you're at the right gig? We're the—" He turns a bit, gestures unsurely at the rest of the stage, "Mount Richardson Provincial Park, yeah? Last chance to get out before we start making noise. Ha."   
  
The crowd laughs, cheers, claps. Some people whoop. Merlin is sitting at the drums, bright eyed and looking at his friend, drumsticks in both hands. He looks perfectly comfortable, like he does this all the time, and Arthur supposes he does.   
  
"I'm Will," the man at the mic says, smiling as he arranges his fingers along the guitar. "That's my brother Chris on the bass, that's Max on the electric, and good old MJ on the drums. We're Mount Richardson Provincial Park, we're from England, and we hope you like this." He counts off from three, and the music starts with a boom of sound—a steady beat with guitars and the lead singer's fast and scratchy voice.   
  
Arthur cannot look away from Merlin. He's laughing while drumming, and oh—he's drumming, movement natural and good, wide when it needs to be controlled when the music slows down and his foot thumping to it, exactly as it should, jeans with a rip at the knee and biting his lip, closing his eyes, lifting his face up and getting into it. He's in a dark t-shirt and his arm are showing, and they're arms now, they're muscles and veins and hair, solid, he's got a goddamn tattoo right below the sleeve that Arthur can't make out and on the next song he leans over to the microphone, sings as a backup voice and on the stretching end note of the chorus' _ooooh!_ , his tongue piercing catches light, glints in his mouth for a second before he closes it again, retreats back to his drumming rhythm.   
  
The heat of the confined bar, of all the people standing close together, is suddenly too much. He is queasy, has been teetering on the edge of nervous sickness all day and now it's running over—tipping, making his head feel thick and his heart heavy, and he puts his beer on a ledge somewhere, makes his way back to the bar with a back of a hand wiping along his forehead. The band starts a new song, the singer murmuring some jokes into the microphone in a light London accent before the music really picks up again, the drums coming in behind slow and steady. Arthur, sitting at the bar again, asks for a glass of water. He feels a slight twinge of shame. He used to be such a good drinker.   
  
"You all right, man?" the barman asks as he gives him the glass, not looking particularly worried.   
  
"Yeah," Arthur croaks. Clears his throat. "Thank you."   
  
From the one moment to the next, as Arthur is drinking his water, he decides to go home. He desperately wants to leave. Merlin never saw him there, would never know he'd left, no harm—no  _more_  harm would be done, really, and the thought of staying there a moment longer in the heat and the whooping people and twenty-something old Merlin with a tattoo and drums and a  _life_  on a stage right there, a sea of people between them just makes him want to bail, to grab his jacket and walk out and be free of this—let go of that part of his life, forever, enough of the angst and the worry and the constant back and forth. Enough.   
  
A song dwindles to a conclusion. Will says thank you. Arthur slips off the stool, scrubs his hands over his face, into his hair, holds on for a moment and lets go—grabs his jacket.   
  
"This song is a bit of an oldie," Will tells the crowd. "Relatively speaking. It's a cover, one of the first ones we played together. It usually gets a good reaction, so . . . " He drums his fingers on the guitar's body, and the guy electric plucks its strings. Arthur puts on his jacket, goes through his pockets to make sure. The singer continues, "It's also a favourite of MJ here, and we like to humour him. Keep him happy." He laughs. "Feed him twice a day." The crowd laughs with, and then the reaction peaks—Merlin must've made a face in reply, gave him the finger or something.   
  
Arthur is ready to leave. He pauses. The song starts with drums, then guitar, and Arthur would recognise that beat anywhere— _anywhere_. Will sings that he's backed his car into a cop car the other day, and that well, he just drove off—sometime life's okay.   
  
Fuck, Arthur mumbles, clenching his jaw. Fuck and again, fuck. There are not a lot of people near the entrance, the crowd collecting on the other end, mulling at the tables, the bar, and Arthur stands in the little bit of draining light coming in through the stained door glass, pinching his face as he closes his eyes, thinking, quite simply,  _fuck._  
  
All right already, the song tells him, We'll all float on, and the statement is firmly backed up by the drums and the melody and also not to worry, even if things end up a bit too heavy, we'll all float on all right.  
  
He barrels out onto the street to take a deep breath. It's chilly out, it's instantly quieter—just cars and people, the city. Arthur slumps against the wall next to the bar. Slowly, he looks down at himself, then pulls at the end of the tie around his neck. It goes with a whoosh of fabric, and he balls it up in his hand, stuffs it into his pocket. Unbuttons his top two buttons. Gives it a moment. Gives it two. The street smells of the restaurant across the road, food slipping in between the waft of exhaust fumes.  
  
By the time he gets back in Will is thanking the crowd, and they're cheering, shouting for more. Someone says, I love you Max!, and Will replies with a husky, I think you mean I love you Will, my dear. There's more laughter, more shouting and the band goes off stage. The noise continues, the word 'More!' is used in many variations, and eventually the band returns—slightly abashed at the game of the encore, not used to it, play a final song—a slow one, one that must be quite well known because everyone is singing along and then say their farewells for real, only to rethink at the last moment, walk back to the mic and finish with a lame, Um, we're gonna be at the bar later if anyone wants to grab a drink with us, so . . .   
  
The crowd lingers, eventually disperses into small groups replacing to the bar—talking loudly, excitedly, the sweat of momentary dancing still hanging in the room. Arthur feels it too, on the back of his neck and pooling in his palms, clammy as he orders another drink he has no intention to drink. Something to hold on to as he passes the time. A motley crew is building off, occasionally with the help of one of the band members—the four being unable to stay away, mindful of their instruments. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur watches Merlin reappear a few times, unscrewing his set, talking animatedly to some of the crew—one time laughing with the electric guitar guy, a blonde little beauty, explaining with nods and gestures what he's doing, what probably still needs to be done. When they're almost finished, the singer runs onto the stage without so much of a warning and jumps on Merlin's back with a roar, almost toppling the both of them over. Merlin holds on to the arms looped around his chest, smiling, and lets Will kiss his cheek, saying something quiet and amused in return. Arthur looks back down at his drink. Swallows, his mouth dry. He takes a sip, but it doesn't help much. When he looks up again, Will is walking away with a pat to Merlin's back, and Merlin is looking straight at Arthur—his smile still in the process of fading. He looks struck.   
  
He walks down the ledge of the stage, without much hesitation, skips off the elevation with a smooth jump, a hand to the edge, and Arthur hurries to get up as well—putting his drink down, walking to meet him halfway.   
  
"You were here," Merlin says, stopping in front of him. It's not much of a question, more a wary sort of statement. "You saw the show."   
  
"Yeah, I . . . " He gestures to the door with a thumb over his shoulder, vaguely. Glances back. "Made time."   
  
The noise of the bar around them picks up for a moment, fills the silence, and Merlin is momentarily distracted by Will laughing loudly by the stage. When he looks back to Arthur, he's breathing a little faster, frowning.   
  
"The thing is," he starts, stops. Licks his lips nervously. "The thing is, I though it'd solve something, seeing you again. That it would . . . something."   
  
Arthur doesn't breathe for a moment. "Did it?"   
  
"No." Merlin clenches his jaw. A muscle jerks, he's grinding his teeth, and then—"No. I feel sick. I feel horrible."   
  
"Merlin," Arthur says, voice breaking. It hangs between them for a moment, wrecked and bare. When Merlin speaks again, it's low and strained, aware of their surroundings.   
  
"Where the fuck did you go? You disappeared. You never—"   
  
Arthur wants to bite back with an instant, You didn't call me either, but that's ridiculous, it's not something he can say and instead he holds on to that breath, swallows it down, looks away for a moment. Then tries again with a calmer, "You look like you're doing well."   
  
"I am. I'm doing very well." Merlin stares, nostrils flared and he's preparing for a challenge. "I didn't, though. For a while. I was a mess for a long time." A pause for a quick breath, then, "You really fucked me up."   
  
"I'm sorry," Arthur says, small and thick, at a loss for anything else.   
  
Merlin huffs a laugh, tired and incredulous, glancing up for silent help. "Thanks," he says. "That's great."   
  
"What—" Arthur chokes on it, sighs tightly. "What do you expect, Merlin? What is it you—"  
  
"An explanation? Something more? Fucking tears, I don't know. Maybe that you were in a coma and lost your memory for four or so years, that'd be a nice start."   
  
"I—What? That's—" He sighs again. "It wasn't all song and dance for me either, you know."   
  
"Oh yeah, real sad, you. Leaving like—like you never even— _existed_ , no strings attached, never having to deal with any of that shit in your high tech bloody real life without looking back even—"  
  
"You think that's what I did? You think I—" Arthur's laugh comes out shaky, unsteady. "That I never thought about you? That I never—"  
  
"I was  _nineteen,_ " Merlin sharply cuts in, "Arthur. Nineteen. I was—I would've—" His words get caught in his throat, and he has to look away, blink fast and often before continuing with a, "I would've followed you to the end of the fucking earth."  
  
Arthur's reply comes quick and hissed as a, "And you think that's good?" He wants to take a step forward, sways a little and then doesn't. He lets go of a breath. "You think that was a good thing?"   
  
"I think that for a year I almost fucking puked every time the phone went," he says, biting out the words. "And that it was never you."   
  
This time he does take a step forward. Merlin looks down, away, and Arthur has to try very hard to keep his voice from shaking when he speaks. "Merlin," he says, little more than a wavering whisper. "Merlin. Listen to me."   
  
Merlin looks up, furious and sad and on the edge of something.   
  
"You were  _nineteen_. You were so young and I was— _terrified_ , I was scared out of my fucking mind to think that you—" He stops. Scrubs his fingers over closed eyes, a headache of worn nerves thudding at his temples. "What if you were it? What if you were—" He blushes already, trying not to stutter or let the shame show as he chokes out the words, " _Love_ , of my . . . " He shakes his head. "Life. And—what the fuck was I supposed to do with that? What could I do? And you! You probably—a kid! Your first crush, a nearly thirty year old man who—I mean, looking back can you even remember why you—"  
  
Merlin cuts him off with a, "No." And, "No. That's—"   
  
Arthur's heart stops for a beat.   
  
"You were it, for me. I never—" Merlin looks angry that he's saying it. He says it anyway. "Yeah. You were it."   
  
Arthur has to screw his eyes shut at that, swallowing, throat thick. He whispers a heartfelt, "Fuck," opens his eyes again, and Merlin is staring at him, waiting. Arthur knows that face so well. So  _well._  He takes a breath for the next words, the words that will come out in a rush, that will say that—  
  
"Oi! Merlin!"  
  
Their attention snaps back to the room, the bar—Will at the stage talking to some of the people from the show, nodding Merlin over.   
  
Merlin looks to Arthur, to Will, back to Arthur. He scrubs a hand through his hair. "Don't go," he says, and it's a request. "Please. Just—give me a second, okay? I'll be right back."  
  
Arthur nods, dumbly, stomach twisting.   
  
"Don't go," Merlin tells him, again, raises his eyebrows—making sure. Again Arthur nods, and Merlin starts walking away backwards, keeping his eyes on him. Apparently reassured after a few steps, he turns around, jogs toward Will. Arthur can't hear them talk. He sees Will clasp a hand on Merlin's shoulder, pulling him close with a laugh, introducing him. Merlin tries to tell him something, but can't get through. He's shaking hands with people now.   
  
He turns away. He goes to the bar, to his drink, stands by it and thinks, This is never going to end well. Thinks Merlin isn't going to come back from his conversation, thinks that even if he does it won't ever be like it used to, thinks that they never really knew each other anyway and that this will only hurt and that when they speak again, he'll finish it proper for once and for all, just get it over with maybe they'll be done with it, then. Be free of it. Live a healthy life.   
  
There's happy conversation going on at the bar, a couple of friends cracking jokes, and Arthur half listens as he stares at his glass. Looking past it. He waits, glances at the exit, pushes the glass away from him.   
  
"Hey," Merlin says, suddenly at his side, close. He moves fast. "Not leaving without me, right?"  
  
"No," Arthur says, looking up. "Still here."   
  
* 

 

They're in Arthur's car, driving the small ten minute to his apartment and it's a flashback, and it isn't a flashback, and the faintly lit display windows of closed department stores in Boston aren't the lights along the road between London and the rest of the world and he can't, now, quite remember how they ended up here. Not in the bigger scheme of things or in the smaller, by which agreement they thought the conversation would be better had at his place, right now, tonight. Their words had been slow and quiet, and Arthur only registered half of them once they were out on the street—distracted by everything, his own frantic mind and beating heart. Mostly by Merlin.   
  
He's tense behind the wheel. He's gripping it with two hands, looking straight ahead, registering little but the blur of streets, the numbers that have him driving on automatic. Once, he glances at Merlin, taking up so much more space than he used to in the passenger seat—leaning toward the window, looking out. Arthur can instantly remember other times they've sat like this, him driving, Merlin gazing out, and can barely wrap his head around how different this one is. How different the both of them are.   
  
They're almost there when Merlin reaches for the radio, wanting to turn it on, but Arthur stops him with a quick—  
  
"Don't." Then, softening, "Please, I'd rather . . . just. Yeah."   
  
"Okay," Merlin says, all accepting maturity and silence, and Arthur grips the wheel tighter. He fears what else his hands might do if he gave them the space. When they get there, when they get to his building, the car is sat parked for a long time without either of them moving, saying anything. Arthur's seatbelt is still clicked in place. The sound of the street right before it goes to sleep—dragging trashcans, dogs, a conversation outside a building—is muffled through the car windows, a distanced presence between them.   
  
There's nothing in particular that calls the tense to an end. Arthur simply sighs, reaches for the belt, and Merlin pushes at the door—gets out before Arthur. Waits at the entrance. Watches as Arthur fumbles with the keys. They've been here before. It's all different. Arthur leads the way up the stairs, second flight, and holds on to the door handle before going in—automatism, listening for the dog's excited barking, giving himself a moment to prepare for her jumping welcome.   
  
He can practically feel Merlin's breath on the back of his neck, standing behind him. It's hard to concentrate. He's starting to get foggy. With a fortifying breath, though, he pushes the door open, greeting Tummy with a whispered  _hi, hi,_  ruffling her about the ears as she leaps with two paws to hip. Merlin, however, is very quickly far more interesting and she leaves Arthur to loudly sniff at Merlin's shoes, that same spot on his knee again.   
  
Arthur doesn't need to look again to know that Merlin crouches down when he gives her a quiet  _hello there_ , smoothing a hand over her head.   
  
"Aren't you a pretty little thing," Merlin says to the dog, talking softly, and Arthur takes off his jacket—tosses it over the back of the couch. He rhythmically rolls up his sleeves with even folds as he walks toward the kitchen, calls back with what he hopes is a casual—  
  
"How about a brew?"  
  
"That'd be nice," Merlin answers. He must've gotten up again. "Thanks." A moment later, Arthur hears him close the front door. For a panicked moment he thinks maybe Merlin left rather than just shut the door behind him, and instead of looking over to the living room he asks a tad too loudly whether he has any, "—preferences?"   
  
"'V you got proper tea?" comes Merlin's answer, nearer, and with a quick glance Arthur sees him in the kitchen's open doorway—hands in pockets, leaning against the post. He's taken off his jacket, too.   
  
"Yeah," Arthur says, quickly turning back to the cupboard. He opens some, distracted, barely focusing on what he's doing. Mindlessly he adds, "Brought back some with me a while ago."   
  
Merlin doesn't reply to that. Arthur, his mind catching up to his words and suddenly wild to explain himself but helpless as to how, settles for making a rattle in looking for the tea—pushing around some pots and cans, slamming the cupboard shut, opening a top one, reaching above to see whether it's—  
  
He barely registers Merlin's sudden movement toward him out of the corner of his eye, barely gets as far as turning in a frightened start and Merlin's already grabbing his arm, roughly, right between elbow and wrist and lifting it up to see and—  
  
Merlin looks. Arthur can't make out his expression, can't make out anything but the clammy warmth of his hand, the slight tremble of his fingers, the way all of that has sent his heartbeat speeding into his throat and god, that bracelet. That stupid,  _ridiculous_  bracelet, he hadn't even thought of it, hadn't noticed it in forever or remembered it was there until—  
  
"What," Merlin starts, but his voice cracks on the exhale. He swallows. Looks up. Arthur is biting down, teeth clenched hard against whatever's crawling up the back of his throat and the next word Merlin says is just as broken, a quiet, " _Jesus_ ," and then his hands are bracketing Arthur's face, and Arthur's hands are fisting at Merlin's shirt and for a moment they rest their foreheads together. For a fraction only, though, and then, with a strangled noise Arthur starts pulling, and Merlin is wrapping around him, arms around his shoulders and Arthur curling his around Merlin's waist, hands grappling and finding purchase but still restless, desperate, his face buried in Merlin's neck and breathing hard, breathing shallow. Merlin's hands are in his hair, nails to his scalp, his breath hot on Arthur's nape and under it all he still smells the goddamn same, under the years and years and plenty of washes, new skin and life and everything he still smells exactly like he used to, boyish sweat and thick emotions, as familiar to Arthur as something from his own childhood—a memory that would not be willed away.   
  
"I hate you," Merlin tells him in a murmur, wet and close, lips moving against skin as he says it. "You're shit."   
  
"I miss you so much," is Arthur's reply to that, grimacing, tucking himself closer. He twists his hands tighter into Merlin's shirt. And Merlin, not answering, kisses his nape, the shell of his ear. Kisses the spot below, his temple, the corner of his eye. Inches back a little and kisses down his cheek, puffs of air warm to skin before he kisses the corner of Arthur's mouth, once, twice. Arthur brushes their noses together. They share a breath. The kiss starts impossibly slow. It kicks out the bottom of his stomach. Merlin’s hand is on his jaw, tilting him closer, fingers fanned out over his ear, behind it, sliding into his hair at the first touch of wet lips. Arthur exhales with a sound from the back of his throat, tongue brushing Merlin’s, and the unexpected bump of silver dragging between them sends a shiver down his spine—spikes sharply at the end. He licks at it again, kisses deeper, and Merlin moans softly in return, pressing good and close all mad heat and the brush of cloth down Arthur’s front, and Arthur finds himself pulling at the back of his shirt, ineffectually, just a little desperate. It gets slick and loud very fast, closed eyes and glasses on and the two of them swaying on their spot, stumbling every now and then with trying to fit together until Arthur is pressed with his back to the counter, breathing heavy as Merlin sucks on his lip, nips at the skin below it. Had he forgotten kissing could be like this? He couldn’t have. This foggy hue and the conviction they could do this for years, surely—he couldn’t have, how could anyone forget lips like these or the scratch of stubble around them, the deep taste of a loved one and the nearness, the heat of them, their breath on your face.   
  
Tummy starts dancing about their feet. She barks, once, excitedly waiting. It must look like some kind of game.   
  
“You’ve got a dog,” Merlin tells him, words formed to the corner of his mouth.   
  
“I do,” Arthur replies, distracted, turning his head trying to brush their lips together again.   
  
Merlin is playing, constantly tilting away. “What’s his name?”  
  
“He’s a she.” Arthur settles for a cheekbone, running his nose along the jut of it, kissing below. “Tum,” he says. “Tummy.”   
  
He can feel the slight pull of Merlin’s smile, hears his quiet, “That’s nice.”   
  
Arthur laughs. A breathy, incredulous laugh, it bubbles up out of god knows where and is impossible to hold back. Merlin’s arms slip from around his neck a little, hands settling on his shoulders as he pulls back a fraction, asks,  
  
“What are you laughing about? What do you even have to laugh about?”  
  
Arthur puffs out a breath. He barely knows himself. “When did you get that piercing?”   
  
“Twenty,” Merlin tells him, quickly lips his puffy lips. There’s a flash of silver. “D’you like it?”  
  
His head swims with associations for a moment, and Arthur tips forward, drops his head to Merlin’s shoulder. It’s a broad shoulder. “You’re so big,” Arthur says, wonders, means it with a bit of apprehension. His hands slip from around Merlin’s waist, go up to hold on to his arms, feel at him. “God, what are these?” He squeezes and the muscle jumps, bunches. “Arms? Are these arms? Have you—”   
  
Merlin interrupts by wrapping those arms around him again, movement quick and urgent, one hand going into his hair by way of nape and the other clinging onto the fabric at his collar—face tucked into his neck. His breath is coming fast and he’s trying to swallow around something, heart beating where it’s pressed to Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur holds on to his upper arms still. He kisses his neck, softly, the joint of his shoulder. They stay like that. They stay burrowed into each other, waiting for the heavy feeling to pass, until Arthur breaks it with a hapless laugh to Merlin’s neck, a, “Jesus,” and, “Look at us. This can’t be right.”  
  
“Why?” comes Merlin’s answer, muffled. Then, as he lifts up a little, followed by a clearer and quieter, “Why do you always think there’s something wrong with love?”  
  
Arthur tenses. One hand slip from Merlin’s arm. His voice his lower when he says, “Don’t—call it—“   
  
“What?  _Love?_ ”  
  
His reply is a tight, nervous breath. Merlin smooths a thumb down the back of his neck, asks, “Why?”  
  
“It’s such a—“ He stops. Swallows. Merlin pulls back to look at him. “It’s such a  _word_.”  
  
Merlin goes after the hand that is now at Arthur’s side, fingers loosely circling his wrist. Over the bracelet. “What’d you call it, then?”  
  
“Crazy.”   
  
Merlin’s expression closes up, momentarily. “Horrible crazy,” he says, not a question, not a statement, little more than a memory.   
  
“Shit,” and it comes out a bit broken, a little too much in a short few hours and he twists his hand to messily hold on to fingers, lace a few together, other hand passing over shoulder to the side of Merlin’s neck, kissing him on the lips and saying, “No,” and kissing again, pressing  _good_  and  _crazy_  into the kiss with murmurs and trying to show, he can’t work words as clearly and honestly as Merlin does, can’t make them mirror what he means and so he hopes this is enough for now, a close and shaky touch, his thumb to the corner of their lips, anchoring them down.   
  
*   
  
They’re exhausted. The both of them are. It’s been a slow deterioration from kissing to leaning on each other, from the kitchen to the living room sofa, from trying to talk a little to tired silence, face vaguely aching and swollen lips and Merlin’s easy breathing tickling his collarbone, his glasses on the table and the brush of lashes to skin, of gradually closing eyes, of sleep creeping in heavy and determined and taking no notice of how much still needs to be said, of how little they know about where to go from here.   
  
“Where d’you stay?” Arthur asks, a little slurred, mindlessly nosing at Merlin’s hair.  
  
“S’crammed. Have to share a bed.” Merlin rubs his cheek over Arthur’s shoulder. “I want to stay here.”   
  
“Share a bed?”   
  
“Hmhm. With Will.”   
  
“He seemed . . . “ Arthur pauses, lets himself think. “Fond. Of—you.”  
  
Merlin laughs. That’s something, at least. It’s a laugh he remembers, that clenches at his chest. He closes his eyes, runs his hand down Merlin’s arm.   
  
“He’s a friend,” Merlin tells him, and on the same thought—“I’m  _tired._ ”   
  
Arthur grumbles. Doesn’t move. “I’ll make the sofa.”  
  
Merlin hums. Then, suddenly hearing, lifts up a bit, “What?”  
  
“What?”   
  
Merlin frowns at him. Arthur, not comprehending, adds another, “What?” That Merlin answers with a sigh of a,  
  
“Oh, for fuck’s—“ Getting up with some difficulty, tugging Arthur along by a shirttail—letting him pause to pick up Merlin’s glasses for him, stand up proper, place them on the bridge of his nose. Trailing his fingers over and behind the shell of Merlin’s ears, making sure the arms are in place. “There,” he says, and Merlin looks at him, eyes that bright shade of blue, seems stuck on a thought for a moment—then snaps out of it with a slight jerk of his head, turns with a definite,   
  
“Come on.”   
  
Arthur pads after, tired and vaguely terrified that something will happen to stop this, to make the reality of the two of them in his apartment collapse on itself and then it’ll be just him again, living life like he’s tripping over his own feet. It’s only been a day. There’s so much to say. Merlin must still be so angry with him, he thinks, so angry about it all in general, and there’s no way he can just come back and let that be that, they have to be careful and delicate and pensive and Arthur doesn’t even have a job, Merlin is touring in a band but oh, if they could, if Merlin stayed and if Merlin wanted and if they could, maybe, maybe then—then they might—  
  
“I thought,” is the only part of his mind that makes it into words, sluggishly walking behind Merlin. “That th’point was that you didn’t want to share a bed.”   
  
“Fuck off,” Merlin laughs in reply, walking into his bedroom like it’s perfectly normal and that he’s done it plenty of times before, that maybe he will do it regularly from here on out and Arthur knows he’s being ridiculous but his heart feels weak and heavy and he pulls at Merlin from behind, pulls him back and wraps around him with two arms around the waist and his face right back into that hot neck, breathing in deep, breathing in with a hum.   
  
Merlin pauses. Leans into it. Places his hands on Arthur’s arms. “’M not sleeping on the couch,” he says, slow and unnecessarily, as though for something to say.  
  
“I can’t believe you’re a drummer,” Arthur says. His hand plays at the hem of Merlin’s shirt, feeling at the thin strip of visible skin. He’s tired. He’s turned on and scared and tired. “You’re so goddamn good, too.”   
  
Merlin laughs airily. “Who’re you trying to butter up, man?” He breathes in on a smile, sighs. “D’you have to get up or something tomorrow?”   
  
“I have a job interview,” Arthur tells him. “Next week.”   
  
“Oooh. You lied.”   
  
“Yeah.” Arthur tightens his hold. “You scared the living the fucking shit out of me, so.”   
  
“I thought up a million different scenarios, you know. Back when I was at home, even. And when we decided to fly over, fuck. All the time. Drove myself insane coming up with—questions, or, you know. Whatever. And then I was here, and I was like. Fuck it. Either I do it or I don’t.”   
  
Arthur lightly props his chin on Merlin’s shoulder and thinks very hard about whether or not to say it before confessing with a small, “A year or so ago I was in London and—took a cab and. Stood parked outside . . . God.” He laughs, disbelieving. “Outside your old house waiting and . . . “   
  
Merlin stills. “I moved out three years ago.”   
  
“Yeah. I figured.”   
  
“I didn’t live my whole life waiting for you, you know.”   
  
“I know.”   
  
“I’ve done things. I’ve had boyfriends, I’ve—gone places, I’ve gone a long time without mentioning you once I’ve—“   
  
“I know.” Arthur lets go a little. “I know, Merlin,” he says, and Merlin steps outside the circle of his arms—takes a step forward, walks a small nervous distance, runs a hand through his hair and then settles on the edge of the bed, sitting down with a short sigh. He plants his elbows on his knees, buries his face in his hands.   
  
Arthur, having given in to some kind of fate, slowly comes to sit down next to him, shoulders slouched and arms between his legs.   
  
“I thought you’d forgotten,” Merlin says into his hands, and he means it honestly but his voice takes on a comically tortured tone by the way it’s muffled. He drops his hands. Sadly snorts at himself.  
  
“Nope,” Arthur tells him. “All and any attempts proved to be completely futile.”   
  
“Serves you right.”  
  
“Yeah,” he agrees, turning a thin smile to Merlin. “It probably does.”   
  
Merlin, it seems, has had enough of talking for now. He bends down to take off his shoes, rolls off his socks, stuff them in the shoes and easily moves on to unbutton his jeans—leaning slightly back on the bed, unpopping one by one without any kind of shame. The contrast with a memory is overbearing for a second, and then Merlin pulls off his jeans, and naked skin is instantly more important. There are legs with muscle now, too, covered in dark hair and fading tan-lines and new scars, bruises, goose-bumps.   
  
“Stop staring,” Merlin says, edging back on the bed to find the left side, placing his glasses on the little table. Arthur can’t, really, and undresses distractedly, trying not to blush but blushing all the same, and now he’s the one who has to carry the same, clumsily taking off his shirt—not having patience for buttons—pushing off his trousers and bunching them, making it unnecessarily difficult. He grunts on a breath, annoyed, and Merlin smiles, gets under the covers. Arthur hurries after, shuddering for the cold and the room and a sliver of anxiety that doesn’t abate when their legs brush under the sheets, limbs touching messily in a mesh of warmth and skin.   
  
Arthur ends up on his back, Merlin arranging himself draped half over, his head pillowed on his chest. His muscles jump at the smallest touch, though, and he just can’t relax, can’t stop the shivers that run through him as the feel of Merlin’s fingers over his bare ribs, his hips, and he tries but he can’t and—  
  
“I can’t sleep,” Merlin whispers, “if you keep moving.”   
  
Arthur screws his eyes shut for a moment, opens them at the dark ceiling. “I know.”   
  
“Arthur,” Merlin says, like waiting for an unanswered question. He sighs. Lifts up a little, hand to Arthur’s chest, then lifts it to his face, tracing the line of his jaw. “Relax,” he whispers, leans close, kisses him on the lips—lets them cling together, chases back for another quick peck. “Relax, baby.”   
  
“Baby,” Arthur parrots back, amused, and Merlin hides his smile to Arthur’s cheek. He sinks back to his chest, then, shifting until he’s comfortable, and Arthur sighs—kisses the line of his hair, curls an arm around him, holds him close. He can feel the tension slowly disappear from the line of his back, can, eventually, feel his breaths even out—can feel him fall into sleep.   
  
Arthur, on his parts, stares up for hours, lost in thought. He feels like he’s on the verge of the best sleep on his life. Merlin breathes quietly on his chest, the dog comes in eventually as well—curls up on the floor on the other side of the bed, smacks a couple of times then settles as well, staying close. Arthur is on the edge of sleep, but for now he lets the moment sink, expand. For now, his heart feels too big for his body.   
  
*   
  
He wakes up to a lot of light and dog’s breath, someone has opened the curtains and Tummy is antsy and nosing at his face. He forgot to walk her last night. Arthur pushes her away with a groan, and she comes back a second later, loud and licking, peeping. He half laughs, half grunts his disgust, agreeing with a  _fine, fine_ , ruffling her about the head before pushing away again—pushing himself up in the next movement. He blinks awake slowly, the light too much. Scrubs the flat of his fingers into his eyes. Blinks fast and squinted about the room.   
  
Quietly he realises Merlin isn’t there. Some emotions tumble dry and sharp in his chest, all over each other, and then he sees the clothes at the side of the bed and swallows it down, breathes. He slips out from under the covers, and the house feels warm—warm for the sun lighting up the place and for someone turning on the heater, early spring as it is, someone turning on the coffee maker in the kitchen. He feels light, incredibly light, feels idiotic and like he should be more than a cliché, but who the fuck will care, he wonders, padding into the living room in boxers and bedhair, eyes puffy and face red and creased and a flush all down his front, excited, for the first time in a truly long time, excited for what will come next.   
  
Merlin is what comes next. Merlin half naked in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with his ankles crossed and glasses on, drinking coffee and reading the headlines of the paper with one hand.   
  
“Hey,” Arthur croaks, voice scratchy with sleep and a knick of something else.   
  
Merlin looks up with a soft, close-mouthed smile, holds out the coffee for him. Arthur takes it, drinks once, twice, smiles his thanks—gives it back. Merlin puts it on the counter with a quiet clank. Puts the paper down on the other side. He seems happy, his eyes scanning Arthur’s face as though for details—as though very pleased with what he sees, gaze lowering and flickering down, to his chest and up, over his bare arms, back to his face. His smile widens.   
  
Arthur closes in on him at the same time as Merlin lifts his hands to frame his face, hold it, press his lips over a closed eyelid.   
  
“If I,” he starts, voice rough and smelling of sleep and coffee. “If I try very hard to not be very bitter, okay, and you try to let love be love, for once, can we please just—be together now?”   
  
Arthur wants, desperately, but—“It’s only been a day.”   
  
“It’s been five years.”   
  
A truck passes by on the street below, high enough that the sun reflects off his window and flashes it into the kitchen for a fraction, washing everything a blinding white. Arthur says, “You said yourself we haven’t been waiting for each other.”  
  
Merlin looks at him. “Haven’t you, though?”   
  
He has.   
  
“But what about your—“  
  
“We’ll work it out.”   
  
“But you need to get b—“   
  
“We’ll—Arthur. Is any of that a reason not to try?”  
  
Arthur lets go of a breath. “Shit,” he says, and instantly likes everything about his apartment better with Merlin in it. He’s ridiculous. Who the fuck will care. “When did you get to be such a smartass?”   
  
Merlin smiles, open and bright, and the shape of it is still there when Arthur kisses him—catching a laugh between them. They stumble back a little, Merlin with his back against the counter, and it’s barely even a moment they’re like that when Merlin changes positions—pushes him off, around, manhandles him back against the counter and presses against him with two hands on either side of him, leaning onto the surface. He’s got his height to his advantage now. He’s always liked it this way, hasn’t he, bearing down a little, deciding the speed. Arthur can’t help grin into the kiss, the laugh as Merlin bites at him like he’s being made fun of, biting back, smoothing it over with tongues and muffled moans when their legs slot together, straddling each other, when Merlin starts pressing closer with a rhythmic hitch to his hips—rubbing his thigh higher, up and down against Arthur’s crotch, his half-hard cock, making him break the kiss with a gasp.   
  
“Shi—“ Arthur starts, and that dissolves into a strangled sound as well, Merlin dipping his mouth lower—biting at his neck, sucking on the sore spot, running the flat of his tongue over it, the sensation of the silver little bud bizarrely thrilling. From there on Merlin makes quick work of getting to his knees, bold and excited and so unlike, so very  _like_  Arthur remembers him, new and familiar and so fucking  _sexy_ , wild hair and rubbing his cheek over his hard cock through the fabric of his boxers, lightly mouthing its shape and  _fuck_ , Arthur has to look away or he isn’t—isn’t going—  
  
Merlin pulls the elastic band down, takes out his cock, and licks a long stripe from bottom to top—tongue and wet heat and that bud, a completely different sensation, and Arthur cries out in surprise with a, “Holy fucking god shit fuck,” gripping on to the edge of the counter behind him. Breathing erratically. Glancing up at the ceiling for strength.   
  
Merlin starts sucking him deep and good and distressing to the point where Arthur has to pants out a, “Wa—wait, I—“ with a hand to Merlin’s hair and a laughing, “I swear to god if you keep on like this I’m not—“ laughing again, cutting it off with a helpless groan, bucking into Merlin’s mouth. He can’t hold himself back. It hasn’t been like this for  _years_ , and Merlin is encouraging it, dipping down to kiss the base, his balls, lapping up and Arthur hisses, buckles a little—dropping to lean on his elbows with a tortured, “ _Merlin._ ”   
  
“If you need to come,” Merlin says, then, voice deep and scratchy, looking up at him from under his lashes, glasses fogged and low on his nose. “Then just come.”   
  
He takes him in his mouth again, then, and Arthur’s heart jumps to the top of his throat, thick and wild. Merlin is sucking his brain out through his cock, and Arthur can only twists a hand into his hair, cry out with quiet  _ah! Ah! Ah!_ s, rolling his hips to the rhythm and when Merlin flicks his tongue over the slit, pulls down the foreskin and sinks down deeper—Arthur comes. His head tipped back, eyes screwed shut, mouth slack and Merlin’s gasping smile pressed low to his stomach, lazily kissing soft skin there.   
  
“Fuck,” he breathes, eventually, a half laugh, and another definite, “Fuck.”  
  
“Yeah,” Merlin says, a bit dazed, face hidden against Arthur’s belly. He glances down. The tenting of Merlin’s boxers is pornographic, like this, the tip of his cock showing through the opening down the front of the underwear. Arthur is on his knees in the next heartbeat, kissing him open and dirty, one arm holding his body close, other hand jerking him off, fast then slow, fast then mean, pulling the orgasm out of him, until Merlin comes with half a twisted sob muffled into a set of teeth into Arthur shoulder. A wet mess between them. Another car flashing a window-shaped box of light across the room.   
  
They stay slumped together against the bottom cupboards, sweaty and stupid, until the sound of the dog scratching against the front door moves them into action—or just a bit of it. Pulling each other up, slowly, marvelling, still touching. The dog is about to piss in the living room. They’re smiling at each other, the idiots, Are you hungry, Do you want to get something to eat, What to do you want to eat—No, what do  _you_  want to eat?  
  
*  
  
Julia and he don’t stay friends. She isn’t incredibly understanding, or happy for him, and overall he feels like a jerk—and he supposes he is. They were dating, and now they’re not, because, for all intents and purposes, he got back together with an ex. She’s incredulous at first, then has clearly had enough of the conversation, and sends him on his way angry and hurt in a way that he knows will end up in her telling this story to her friends, new friends, old friends, her mother,  _This one guy I dated for barely three weeks and he was a. . ._ And then, turning to her dog,  _Wasn’t he?_  
  
But then again, Arthur thinks, Merlin. The euphoric little thrill is still there, the bubbling excitement at going back home and having him be there, on the couch or in the shower or as a note, saying he’s rehearsing, he’ll be back later, and Arthur can jump on him or sit on the downturned toilet seat and talk about his day through the fog of hot water, or smile stupidly at the note and pass the time until he comes back, thinking of people he could maybe call about this, who would desperately want to know all about this person in his life. He wants to talk to others about it. He wants them to agree, to be impressed, to fall a little bit in love themselves.   
  
He’s close to his apartment now, a grocery bag in hand and checking his phone when someone shouts, “ _Baby!_ ” across the street. Arthur looks up, confused then noticing—Merlin leaning far over the fire-escape, a danger to himself but laughing, looking happy and dressed like he’s been bumming around all day.   
  
Arthur laughs as well, throwing his head back to it, replies with a grand, arms-lifting, booming, “ _Darling!_ ”  
  
A car stops at the traffic lights, windows open as the DJ finishes a rushed introduction to a song. It’s a tinny, static playing of  _Always Look on the Bright Side of Life_ , overlapping with the distant guitar of a street performer, overlapping with a carhorn from behind when the lights turn green. Across the road a young girl playing pretend with her sister is trying to tell her exactly what to do, getting annoyed when the sibling won’t comply. The tree is still blowing white leaves into the air, the wind chasing them down the sidewalk.   
  
“How goes the grocery shopping!” Merlin shouts, swinging back and then forth over the railing.   
  
“Grand!” Arthur yells back, coming to stand under the fire escape. He squints up against the light. “How goes the lazying about!”  
  
“Unparalleled,” Merlin tells him. His laughter weaves through the word.   
  
*   
  
[End]

 


End file.
